LIBRARY  OF  THE  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 

PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


Purchased  by  the 
Mrs.   Robert  Lenox  Kennedy  Church  History  Fund. 


BR  146  .S78  1919  v. 2 
Stephenson,  Andrew,  1856- 

1927. 
The  history  of  Christianity 


WORLD      WORSHIPS      SERIES 

History  of  Christianity,  in  4 
Volumes.     By   Andre-tv  Stephenson 

Sex  Worship  and  Symbolism  of 
Primitive      Races.  By      Sanger 

Broiun,  II. 

Devil.  Worship,  the  Sacred  Books 
AND  Traditions  of  the  Yezidiz. 
By  Isya  Joseph. 

ZoROASTRIANISM     AND     JUDAISM.       By 

George  William  Carter. 

Messiahs:  Christian  and  Pagan. 
By  Wilson  D.  Wallis. 

Roman  Emperor-Worship.  By 
Louis  Matthews  Sweet. 


RICHARD      G.      BADGER,      PUBLISHER,      BOSTOX 


THE  HISTORY 
OF  CHRISTIANITY 


FROM    GREGORY    THE    GREAT    TO    THE 
ESTABLISHMENT  OF  PAPAL  AUTOCRACY 


BY 
ANDREW  STEPHENSON,  A.M.,  Ph.D. 

Sometime  Profesior  of  History  in  DePauvo  University 

FOUR  VOLUMES 
Volume  Two 


V 


■0^i^^r^U^ 


V 


NlOV  4   191.9 


iS 


ARnetveRnvqri 


BOSTON 
RICHARD  G.  BADGER 

THE  GORHAM  PRESS 


COPYEIGHT,  1919,  BY  RiCHAED  G.  BaDGEB 


All  Rights  Reserved 


Made  in  the  United  States  of  America 


The  Gorham  Press,  Boston,  U.S.A. 


CONTENTS 

THIRD  PERIOD 

FROM  THE  FALL  OF  THE  WESTERN  ROMAN 
EMPIRE  TO  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

(475-490) 

BOOK  V.  THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  NEW  NATIONALITIES 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XXI.     The   Invaders   of   Italy 13-52 

The  Barbarian  world;  The  Germans;  Germanic  culture;  Inherent 
vitality   of  the   Germans;    Religion   of   the   Germans;   German 
military  system;  Government  of  the  Germans;  Contrast  between 
German  and  Roman  States; 
The  Goths; 

Origin  of  the  Goths  doubtful;  First  historical  appearance; 
Early  associations;  Gothic  home  on  the  Dnieper;  Visigoths 
and  Ostrogoths;  Relations  with  Rome;  Aurelian  gives  Dacia 
to  Visigoths  (274) ;  Conversion  of  Goths  to  Arian  Christian- 
ity; Nature  of  the  Christianity  of  Ulfillas;  Empire  of  Erman- 
aric;  Permanent  separation  of  the  Visigoths  and  Ostrogoths; 
The  Visigoths; 

Battle  of  Adrianople;  Visigoths  defeat  the  Romans  (378); 
Alaric  made  king;  Undertakes  Italian  campaign;  Turned 
back  by  Stillicho;  Sack  of  Rome  (410);  Death  of  Alaric; 
Ataulfus  king;  Visigoths  in  Gaul;  Alliance  with  Rome;  Ataul- 
fus  murdered;  Establishment  of  Visigothic  kingdom;  Theo- 
doric  succeeds  to  the  throne;  War  with  Huns;  Euric  king; 
Alaric  II  (485);  Defeat  of  Clovis;  Civil  war  and  weakness; 
Government  of  Visigoths;  King  and  nobility;  Visigothic  Law; 
Reorganization  of  Leovigild;  Recarred  succeeds;  Visigoths 
converted  to  Catholicism;  The  enervated  Visigoths  can  not 
withstand  the  Saracens  (711);  Disappearance  of  Visigoths. 
The  Vandals; 

Northern  frontier  of  Rome  unprotected;  Early  condition  of 
the  Vandals;  Home  in  Pomerania;  Vandals  invade  Gaul; 
Cross  through  into  Africa;  Gaeseric  king  of  the  Vandals;  Con- 
quest of  Roman  Africa;  Naval  preeminence  of  the  Vandals; 
Sack  of  Rome;  Administration  of  Gaeseric;  Division  of  the 
people  and  allotment  of  the  land ;  Method  of  taxation  and  Mili- 
tary service;  Arianism  of  the  Vandals;  Persecution  of  the 
Orthodox;  Vandals  rapidly  Romanized;  Death  of  Gaeseric; 
Conquest  and  disappearance  of  the  Vandals  (534). 
The  Ostrogoths; 

Wanderings  in  the  empire;   Theodoric's   early   life;   Became 

V 


vi  Contents 

CHAPTER  PAQB 

king;  Theodoric  decides  on  conquest;  They  march  into  Italy; 
Odoacer  and  the  Heruli;  AflFairs  in  Italy;  The  Rise  of  Odo- 
acer;  Conquest  of  the  Western  Empire;  Theodoric  defeats 
Odoacer;  Treaty  with  Odoacer;  Murder  of  Odoacer;  Estab- 
lishment of  the  Ostrogothic  empire;  Theodoric's  Alliance; 
Nature  of  Theodoric's  reign;  Partition  of  the  land;  Policy  in 
his  two-fold  position;  Two  classes  of  subjects;  Theodoric's 
code  of  laws;  Theodoric  restores  the  prosperity  of  Italy; 
Civil  administration;  Theodoric's  religious  policy;  Brought 
about  a  high  state  of  civilization;  Results  of  his  rule;  Last 
years;  Death  of  Theodoric  in  526;  Rapid  decay  of  Ostro- 
gothic power;  Civil  War  and  anarchy;  Revival  of  Roman 
power  under  Justinian;  Ostrogoths  are  conquered  and  per- 
ish (552). 
The  Lombards; 

Italy  under  Roman  rule;  Narses  recalled;  Invitation  to  the 
Lombards;  Lombard  conquest  of  Italy;  Character  of  the 
Lombards;  Early  history;  Alboin,  king  of  the  Lombards; 
Succeeded  by  Clef;  Lombards  never  became  centralized; 
Dukes  remain  independent  for  ten  years;  Kingship  restored; 
Autharis  institutes  feudal  customs;  Lombards  become  Ortho- 
dox; First  Lombard  Laws  (648);  Nature  of  the  Lombard 
Kingdom;  Growing  strength  of  the  Papacy;  Lombards  over- 
come by  the  Franks  (774) ;  Gradual  amalgamation  of  the 
Lombards  with  the  Latin  population. 

XXII.  The  Feakks  from  Clovis  to  Charlemagne 53-67 

Franks  under  Clovis;  Ripuarian  Franks  and  Salian  Franks; 
Clovis  defeats  Rome;  The  story  of  the  vase;  Clovis'  kingdom; 
Germanic  wars  of  Clovis;  Marries  Clotilda;  Clovis  converted  to 
Catholicism;  Clovis  and  his  followers  baptized;  Conquest  of  Bur- 
gundy; Campaign  against  the  Visigoths;  Franks  victorious; 
Capture  of  Toulouse;  Given  Roman  titles;  Moves  his  capital  to 
Paris;  Consolidation  of  the  Franks;  Franks  under  Clovis;  Dis- 
poses of  his  relatives;  Death  of  Clovis,  511. 

Carolingians ; 

Origin  of  the  Carolingians; 

Results  of  Pippin's  rule;  Pippin's  sons;  Civil  wars;  Charles 
becomes  ruler  of  all  the  Franks;  Battle  of  Tours;  Death  of 
Charles;  Pippin  the  Short  sole  ruler  of  the  Franks;  Pippin's 
bargain  with  the  Pope. 

XXIII.  The  Anglo-Saxons 68-106 

The  Saxons  in  their  old  home;  The  various  tribes;  Nature  of  the 
country;   Nature  of  the  people;  Social  life  of  the  Saxons;  Re- 
ligion of  the  Saxons;  The  Saxon  temper;  Saxon  piracy; 
Conquest  and  Settlement  of  Britain; 

Description  of  the  country;  Prehistoric  Britain;  The  Neo- 
lithic man;  First  invasion  of  the  Celts;  The  coming  of  the 
Romans;  Caesar's  first  British  campaign;  Caesar's  second 
campaign;  Conquest  of  Britain  by  Tiberius  Claudius;  Britain 
under  Octavius;  Britain  under  Suetonius  Paulinus;  Britain 
under  Agricola;  Religion  in  Britain;  Decay  of  Roman  power; 


Contents  vii 

CHAPTER  .  PAOZ 

Roman  conquest  never  completed;  Invitation  to  the  Jutes; 
Landing  of  Hengest  and  Horsa;  Kentish  kingdom  founded; 

Establishment  of  the  Saxon  Kingdoms; 
Sussex  401;  Wessex  510;  Essex  526; 

Establishment  of  the  Anglian  kingdoms; 

Northumberland,  547;  Mercia,  584;  East  Anglia,  572. 

Conquest  of  the  West  Saxons. 

Conquest  of  the  Angles. 

The  Heptarchy. 

Conversion  of  the  Saxons; 

Early  paganism;  Conversion  of  Kent;  Ethelbert,  king  of  Kent; 
marries  Bertha;  Gregory  and  the  Angle  captives;  Augustine 
and  his  monks;  Conversion  of  Ethelbert  and  his  people;  Civil- 
izing of  Kent;  Code  of  Laws. 

Conversion  of  Essex. 

Conversion  of  East  Anglia. 

Conversion  of  the  Anglo-Saxons. 

Conversion  of  Northumbria; 

Edwin  unites  Mercia  and  Deira;  Marries  Ethelberga;  Con- 
version of  Edwin  and  his  followers;  Death  of  Edwin  and 
lapse  into  barbarism;  Reconversion  by  monks  from  lona. 

Conversion  of  Wessex,  695. 

Conversion  of  Mercia; 
Paganism  under  Penda; 
Battle  of  Winwaed  and  the  Christianization  of  Mercia  in  655. 

Conversion  of  Sussex,  682. 

Roman  and  Irish  Christianity; 

Struggle  between  Roman  and  Irish  Christianity;  Wilfrid  and 
the  Synod  of  Whitby;  The  work  of  Theodore;   Council  of 
Hertford,   678;   Permanent  organization  of  the  Church;   Re- 
sults of  Theodore's  efforts;  Other  early  churchmen; 
Benedict  Biscop. 
Cuthbert. 
Caedmon. 

The  Struggle  for  Political  Supremacy; 
Position  of  the  seven  kingdoms; 

Northumberland  supremacy ; 
Division  into  Deira  and  Bernicia;  Northumbria  under  Ethel- 
ric  and  Ethelfrid;  Under  Edwin;  Northumbria  reunited  under 
Oswy;  End  of  Northumbrian  Supremacy,  650. 

Supremacy  of  Mercia; 
Mercia  under  Penda  and  Wulfhere;  Ethelred;  Mercia  at  its 
height  under  Ethelbald;  Mercia  under  Off  a;  End  of  Mercian 
Supremacy. 

Supremacy  of  Wessex; 
Weakened  by  civil  war  till  ninth  century;  Egbert  obtains  West 
Saxon  throne  in  807;  Conquest  of  Cornwall  and  Mercia,  820; 
Northumbria  submits  to  Wessex  and  Wessex  becomes  England. 

XXIV.     Origin  and  Development  of  the  Papacy      ....   107-130 

Origin  of  the  Papacy;  Greek  churches  became  a  Federation  of 
Republics;  Little  accomplished  by  the  Eastern  Church;  Western 


viii  Contents 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

Christianity;  Organization  and  language  Greek;  Rome  did  noth- 
ing more  than  the  East;  Development  of  the  Pripsthood;  Coun- 
cil of  Elvira;  Decretal  of  Siricius. 
Innocent  I; 

Sack  of  Rome  by  Alaric;  Building  up  of  the  papacy;  Papal 
Monarchy  succeeds  to  the  Roman  Empire;  Death  of  Innocent 
in  417. 
Leo  the  Great; 

Leo  as  a  preacher;  Letter  of  Septimus  to  Leo  making  a  com- 
plaint; Letter  of  Leo  to  the  offending  Metropolitan;  Leo  and 
the  Manichaeans;  Clash  between  Leo  and  Hilary  of  Aries; 
Case  of  Projectus;  Edict  of  Valentinian  III;  Turrilius  ap- 
peals to  Leo  in  the  case  of  the  Priscillians ;  The  Tome  of  Leo. 

XXV.  Mohammed  and  His  Teachings 131-147 

Arabia  and  the  Arabs;  Birth  of  Mohammed;  Death. 
Teachings ; 

(1)   Prayer;   (2)   Almsgiving;   (3)   Fasting;   (4)   Pilgrimages; 

Six  Articles  of  Faith;  Successes  of  Mohammed. 
Abou-Bekr; 

Speech  of  Abou-Bekr. 
Omar ; 

Progress  of  Mohammedan  Arms ;  Spirit  of  the  Faith  of  Islam. 

BOOK  VI.     RELATION  OF  THE  CHURCH  TO  CIVIL 
AUTHORITY 

XXVI.  Charlemagne  and  His  Influence  on  Christian  CrviLi- 

ZATION 151-166 

Youth  of  Charlemagne;  Sole  ruler;  Character  of  the  young  king; 

Love  of  greatness. 

Wars  of  Charlemagne; 

Conquest  of  Aquitania  and  Lombardy;  Stops  Saxon  Invasions; 
Military  skill;  Causes  of  success. 

Administration  of  Charlemagne; 
Materials  for  organization;   (1)   Civil  administration:  Central 
administration;   Nature  of  Charlemagne's   Capitularies;   Eco- 
nomic legislation;  Local  Administration; 
First  class  of  agents;  Dukes  of  Provinces; 
Second  class  of  agents;  Missi  Domimci. 
Ecclesiastical  Administration. 

Charlemagne's  Coronation; 

No  emperor  of  the  West  since  476;  Meets  the  Pope;  Arrival 
in  Rome;  Doings  in  Rome;  The  coronation  ceremony. 

Death. 

Results ; 

Failed  to  establish  permanent  government;  Central  govern- 
ment decayed;  Local  government  lived. 

XXVII.  Feudalism  and  the  Church 167-189 

Transition  to  feudalism. 

Elements  of  feudalism; 


Contents  i^ 

PAGE 

°^*^^^Institutions  containing  one  or  more  of  these  feudal  elements; 

Elements  which   lived;    Pre-feudal   use   of  the   word   Vassal; 

Land    relationship;    Legalizing    of    the    Feudal    Institutions; 

Military  service;   Legal  jurisdiction;  Geographical  extent  of 

territory. 

Feudalism  Proper; 

Lawyer's  theory  of  feudalism;  x-,     j  i     -i. 

Description  of  the  castle;  Feudal  society;  The  Feudal  rit- 
ual; Obligations  of  a  vassal  to  his  suzerain;  Obligations  of 
the  suzerain  to  his  vassal;  Revenues  of  a  fief. 
Feudalism  and  the  Church. 
Summary. 

XXVIII.    The    Crusades 190-2fl4 

Introduction. 
Classification ; 

Eastern  Crusades;  -,       -,      xu 

First  crusade;  second  crusade;  third  crusade;   fourth  cru- 
sade; fifth  crusade;  sixth  crusade;  seventh  crusade. 
Western  Crusades;  ,       ^,      t^        • 

Norman  Conquest;  The  Albigensian  crusade;  the  Prussian 

crusade. 
Motives  of  the  Crusades; 

Religious;  .  ., 

Passion  for  pilgrimages;  Mussulman  interference  with  pil- 
grims ;  Agitation  by  enthusiasts  such  as  Pope  Urban  II  and 
Peter  the  Hermit. 
Secular;  . 

General  poverty;   Ambition  of  temporal  princes;   Ambition 
of  feudal  aristocracy;  Hopes  of  the  multitude. 
State  of  Crusading  Society; 

Popular  ignorance  and  credulity;  The  excesses  of  the  crusad- 
ers;  Expeditions  of  Rabbles;   Improvidence   and  superstition, 
illustrated  by  the  siege  of  Antioch;  Barbarities  in  the  city  of 
Jerusalem. 
Consequences  of  the  Crusades; 
Intellectual; 
New  Ideas  of  government;  New  ideas  of  commercial  enter- 
prise; New  ideas  of  Industry. 
Political;  xr  ,      j  .  -e 

Extended  the  boundaries  of  Christendom;  Helped  to  unify 
France  and  Spain. 

Undermined  feudalism  to  the  advantage  of  monarchy;  By 

the  consolidation  of  fiefs;  By  modifying  the  military  system; 

They  weakened  the  power  of  feudal,  over  non-feudal  classes; 

By  removing  obstructions  to  emancipation  of  serfs;   By 

diffusing  ideas  of  human  equality. 

Ecclesiastical; 

Increase  of  the  power  of  Rome;  Final  separation  between 
Eastern  and  Western  Christendom;  Partial  emancipation  of 
European  thought. 


X  Contents 

CHAPTER  PAOK 

XXIX.  The  Conversion  of  the  Germans 215-222 

(1)  The  British  Missionaries; 

(2)  The  Prankish  Missionaries; 

(3)  The  Anglo-Saxon  Missionaries; 
Boniface. 

XXX.  The  Conversion  of  Scandinavia 223-228 

Invasion  of  the  Northmen;  Missionary  movements. 

Anschar; 

Character  of  Anschar;  Conversion  of  Norway. 
St.  Olaf; 

Resume. 

XXXI.  The   Slavs 229-234 

Methodius,  868;  Bohemia  and  Hungary. 

BOOK  VII.  THE  EMPIRE  AND  THE  PAPACY 

XXXII.  Theories  of  Universal  Government 237-241 

Introduction;  The  common  people;  The  old  German  popula- 
tion; The  Emperor  and  the  Pope;  The  State-Church  theory;  The 
Church-State  or  Papal  theory;  These  theories  in  conflict. 

XXXIII.  The   War   of   Investitures 242-284 

(a)  Tendencies  in  the  Empire. 

(b)  Tendencies  in  the  Church. 

(c)  Attempts  at  reform; 

The  council  in  the  Lateran;  Pope  Alexander  II. 

(d)  Henry  IV  and  Gregory  VII; 

Youth  of  Henry  Hildebrand;  Designs  of  Hildebrand. 
Second  Lateran  Synod. 
The  struggle; 
Henry  excommunicated;  Canossa. 

XXXIV.  The  Revolt  of  the  Italian  States 285-306 

Origin  of  the  Municipal  government  of  the  Italian  Cities; 

(a)  Conflict  between  the  people  and  their  rulers; 

(b)  Imperial  rule  in  Italy. 

(c)  Republican  revolution; 

(1)  Arnold   of   Brescia;    Abelard;   Frederic   Barbarossa. 

(2)  The  Church  lending  its  influence  to  the  cities  to  un- 
dermine the  Empire. 

XXXV.  The  Triumph  of  the  Papacy 307-320 

Condition  of  the  Christian  World  at  the  Accession  of  Innocent 
III. 

Reign  of  Innocent;  Fourth  Lateran  Council; 

Frederic  II; 

Political  theory  of  Frederic;  Death  of  Frederic; 

The  Fall  of  the  Hohenstaufen. 
Europe  becomes  a  theocracy  administered  by  the  Popes. 
Resume, 


THIRD  PERIOD 


FROM  THE  FALL  OF  THE  WESTERN  ROMAN 
EMPIRE  TO  GREGORY  THE  GREAT 

(475-590) 


BOOK  V 
THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  NEW  NATIONALITIES 


THE  HISTORY  OF 
CHRISTIANITY 

CHAPTER  XXI 

THE    INVADERS    OF    ITALY 

i  <"!  II  THEN  Rome  called  herself  Mistress  of  the  World,  she 
VV  knew  well  enough  it  was  an  exaggeration,  and  that 
her  bounds  were  not  of  the  earth  also.  Cruel  experience  had 
taught  her  that  she  had  not  one  frontier  that  was  not  threat- 
ened by  tribes  hidden  in  the  depths  of  the  North,  the  South 
of  the  West." 

If  we  turn  our  attention  to  the  land  lying  north  of  the 
Danube  and  east  of  the  Rhine,  we  will  there  find  three  great 
races,  or  more  properly  belts  of  people :  ( 1 )  The  Germans, 
(2)  the  Slavs,  north  and  east  of  the  Germans,  and  (3)  the 
Huns,  Lapps,  and  Finns,  north  and  east  of  the  Slavs.  Of 
these  belts  of  people  the  Germans  are  of  special  interest  to 
us.  The  word  German  is  of  Celtic  origin  and  probably  means 
"  neighbors,"  possibly  "  shouters."  The  word  Deutsch  does 
not  occur  until  the  ninth  century  and  was  not  then  the  usual 
designation.  The  Germans  themselves  claimed  to  have  had 
a  common  origin,  all  of  them  regarding  Mannus,  the  first 
man,  and  the  son  of  the  God  Tuisco,  as  their  common  father. 
Mannus  is  represented  as  having  three  sons  and  from  one 
or  the  other  of  these  three  sons  each  and  every  German  was 
descended,  thus  having  a  god-like  ancestry.  These  Germans 
were  known  by  many  and  various  tribal  names,  as  Goths, 
Burgundians,  Suevi,  Alemanni,  Vandals,  Lombards,  Franks, 
and  Saxons;  but  in  their  fundamental  ideas  of  government, 
religion,  language,  and  manners  they  were  alike. 

It  is  impossible  to  imagine  any  two  conditions  of  life  more 

13 


14  The  History  of  Christianity 

opposite  than  that  existing  among  the  civilized  and  effeminate 
Romans  south  of  the  Danube,  and  that  of  the  Germanic 
tribes  to  the  north  of  the  Danube.  The  Germans  had  no 
cities,  but  hved  instead  in  rude  villages  or  stockades  which 
were  fortified  by  tuns,  thick-set  hedges  made  by  the  lopping 
together  of  trees  and  the  ingrowing  of  brambles  and  vines. 
Freely  they  roamed  over  the  plains  and  the  valleys  among  the 
hills  of  their  fatherland.  They  paid  little  attention  to 
agriculture,  which  fell  chiefly  to  the  lot  of  the  women.  Suffi- 
cient grain  was  sown  to  carry  them  through  the  winter,  but 
they  produced  no  surplus  for  purposes  of  exchange  and  they 
had  no  knowledge  of  the  use  of  money.  They  had  no  prop- 
erty, as  we  understand  the  word,  but  the  ownership  of  the 
land  was  vested  in  the  whole  community  or  tun.  The  magis- 
trates distributed  to  each  family  the  lot  to  be  cultivated 
and,  when  the  harvest  was  gathered  in,  these  same  magis- 
trates saw  to  it  that  the  produce  was  proportionately  dis- 
tributed. Their  food  was  chiefly  meat,  furnished  partly  by 
the  chase,  and  partly  by  their  ill-kept  droves  of  stunted  and 
deformed  cattle.  Milk,  cheese,  coarse  bread,  and  turnips 
supplemented  this  liberal  supply  of  flesh  but  were  not  used 
in  great  abundance.  They  dressed  in  what  they  could  not 
eat,  the  skins  of  animals  of  the  chase,  or  rudely  woven  cloth. 
This  clothing  was  closely  fitted  to  the  form,  making  another 
point  of  contrast  to  the  full  flowing  robes  of  the  Greek  and 
Romans.  It  is  from  our  German  ancestors  we  obtain  our 
trousers.  All  of  the  old  historians  testify  to  their  purity 
of  life.  In  this  respect  the  contrast  between  them  and  the 
Celts  of  Britain,  the  Huns  of  Asia,  and  our  own  American 
Indians  is  very  striking.  However  this  may  be,  sobriety  was 
not  one  of  their  virtues,  as  to  be  a  hero  with  them  was  not 
merely  to  be  foremost  on  the  field  of  battle,  but  to  be  also 
the  hardest  drinker  in  the  bouts  which  lasted  till  break  of 
day.  They  fought  like  demons  and  they  fed  like  swine. 
They  also  were  filled  with  a  passion  for  gambling,  and  staked 
their  all,  wife,  children,  liberty,  on  a  single  throw  of  the  dice. 
The  life  of  the  forest  had  been  for  centuries  building  up 
these  warriors  to  be  capable  of  bearing  the  cold,  patient  of 
fatigue,   and  above  all,  "  brave  beyond  any  people  of  the 


The  Germans  15 

earth."  The  Germans  were  a  race  of  giants  and  their  fierce 
blue  eyes  and  3'ellow  flaxen  hair  served  to  make  them  more 
terrible  to  the  smaller,  darker  Roman.  War  was  their  de- 
light. Both  Caesar  and  Tacitus  speak  of  the  fury  with 
which  they  rushed  into  battle,  of  their  indifference  to  wounds, 
and  even  of  the  gladness  with  which  they  met  the  death  which 
sent  them  to  live  forever  with  Odin. 

As  pictured  by  Tacitus  the  Germans  were  taking  the  first 
steps  in  civilization.  In  capacity  to  develop,  to  become  civ- 
ilized, the  German  was  incomparably  superior  to  any  other 
savage  people,  especially  so  to  the  red  Indian  of  America. 
Ever  since  we  have  known  them  the  Indians  have  been  a  de- 
creasing race;  the  Germans  have  been  an  increasing  one,  in 
spite  of  war  and  famine  and  pestilence  and  all  the  ills  of  a 
precarious  forest  life,  proving  their  youthful  strength  and 
vitality  by  a  reproduction  unparalleled  in  history.  Their 
susceptibility  was  great  and  their  progress  very  rapid.  The 
Romans  were  not  slow  in  discovering  this  and  they  saw  with 
dread  and  awe  that  they  were  face  to  face  with  a  people  such 
as  they  had  never  before  seen.  At  the  time  of  the  migration, 
the  Goths  especially  had  considerable  culture,  and  wherever 
they  went  they  absorbed  not  only  some  of  the  vices  of  more 
civilized  peoples,  a  step  taken  by  every  barbarian,  but,  also, 
picked  up  agriculture,  military  science,  architecture,  law, 
and  religion.  They  had  even  translated  the  Bible  into  their 
own  tongue.  Other  barbarians  the  Romans  civilized  either 
passed  the  danger  point  or  off  the  face  of  the  earth,  but  they 
could  not  do  this  with  the  Germans.  He  kept  his  pristine 
vigor  and  took  at  the  same  time  greedily  whatever  the  Roman 
had  to  give  him.  The  Germans  were  deeply  religious  peo- 
ple, yet  for  pagans  they  were  little  superstitious.  Their  re- 
ligion corresponded  well  to  their  spirit  of  pride  and  heroism, 
bloodthirsty  passion,  and  love  of  glory,  and  yet  there  was 
a  certain  charm  mingled  with  their  terrible  fancies.  The 
supreme  power  which  was  conceived  b}'  other  Arian  heathen 
as  light,  sky,  or  sun,  they  worshipped  as  the  good,  a  moral 
being,  "  Gott  "  (God),  this  word  existing  without  an  article 
in  all  the  primitive  dialects.  Moral  ideas  were  not  lacking 
and  consequently  a  natural  thought  with  them  was  a  moral 


16  The  History  of  Christianity 

god.  Besides  this  moral  being,  "  Gott,"  the  Germans  had 
Woden,  who  gives  victory,  and  who  comes  nightly  from  the 
heavenly  palace,  the  windows  of  which  open  towards  the  east, 
to  ride  through  the  air  with  the  dead  warriors :  Donar,  the 
German  Hercules,  the  Thor  of  the  Norsemen.  He  is  the 
mighty  thunderer  and  is  armed  with  a  hammer  which  he  flings 
at  his  enemies,  but  which  returns  ever  to  his  hand.  These 
are  the  dwellers  on  the  German  Olympus,  who  with  the  god- 
desses Freya,  the  northern  Venus ;  Hulda,  the  chaste  Diana, 
and  Herthe,  the  goddess  of  the  earth,  who  everywhere  carries 
peace  and  the  arts,  made  up  the  deities  of  the  Germans. 
The  paradise  of  these  doughty  warriors  was  thoroughly  in 
keeping  with  their  practical  ideas  of  happiness,  a  place 
where  warriors  fought  and  drank  without  ceasing.  This  is 
especially  worthy  of  note  because  one's  heaven  is  always  his 
highest  ideal.  He  never  in  this  life  attains  to  it,  but  always 
strives  that  way.  The  Germans,  following  this  law,  drank 
everything  fluid  except  water  and  fought  whenever  opportu- 
nity offered.  Love  of  individual  independence  and  volun- 
tary devotion  were  the  basis  of  Germanic  character.  These 
are  today  their  special  characteristics.  Adventurous  war, 
carried  on  for  glory  and  booty  afar  from  home,  was  their 
chief  delight.  Every  German  freeman  was  a  soldier  and  a 
citizen,  and  between  citizenship  and  military  duty  there  was 
no  line  of  demarkation.  Their  warfare  partook  of  the  na- 
ture of  their  individual  independence.  Each  warrior  at- 
tached himself  to  some  chief  of  great  renown,  distinguished 
mayhap,  like  Saul,  the  son  of  Kish,  by  being  head  and  shoul- 
ders above  his  fellows,  or  like  Pippin,  who  could  sever  the 
heads  of  a  bull  and  a  lion  with  one  stroke  of  his  sword.  Him 
he  followed  in  peace  and  war,  with  other  warriors  recruited 
in  the  same  way.  Together  they  formed  the  comitatus  or 
gefolge  of  the  chief,  and  were  ready  to  sacrifice  their  lives 
for  him,  bound  only  by  a  voluntary  obligation,  by  bonds  of 
honor  alone.  The  individual  is  everywhere  magnified.  In 
case  the  whole  nation  went  upon  the  war  path,  the  military 
unit  remained  the  same.  Each  family  or  village  community 
sent  its  able-bodied  men  under  the  command  of  its  oldest  or 
most  warlike  member.     These,  in  turn,  united  with  the  men 


Government  of  the  Germans  17 

from  the  other  villages  of  the  hundred  under  the  leadership 
of  the  hundred-man,  a  leader  chosen  by  reason  of  his  kin- 
ship to  every  man  in  the  hundred.  The  national  army  was 
composed  of  a  certain  but  indefinite  number  of  these  hundred- 
units.  Its  organization  was,  therefore,  loose  and  somewhat 
unwieldy,  there  being  too  much  individual  initiation  and  inde- 
pendence, and  not  enough  subordination  to  central  author- 
ity. To  establish  the  despotism  of  a  single  man  over  such  a 
people  was  an  utter  impossibility.  They  spurned  everything 
that  looked  like  subserviency  and  utterly  loathed  the  disci- 
pline of  the  empire. 

Their  government  was  but  an  agglomeration  of  village 
communities  such  as  I  have  already  described.  These  com- 
munities were  democracies  where  every  freeman  had  a  vote. 
They  combined  into  districts  which  Avere  presided  over  by 
an  elective  graf  or  count,  but  in  each  district  an  assembly, 
composed  either  of  the  freemen  of  the  village  or  their  repre- 
sentatives, settled  all  questions  of  importance  and  assumed 
complete  judicial  authority.  The  entire  body  of  freemen 
composing  these  several  judicial  districts  met  for  legislative 
purposes  in  one  great  national  assembly  or  folk-moot.  Here, 
they  elected  a  leader  for  their  military  expeditions,  passed 
necessary  laws,  and  settled  questions  of  peace  and  war.  This 
assembly  met  at  the  new  and  full  moon  and  was  looked  upon 
by  the  Germans  as  a  divine  institution.  Larger  confedera- 
tions of  tribes  were  formed  upon  the  same  plan  and  with 
the  same  object.  A  leader  was  chosen  in  the  same  wav. 
This  is  the  only  idea  which  the  German  had  of  a  state. 
It  had  no  geographical  boundaries.  It  was  not  fast  to  the 
soil.  It  was  a  peripatetic  state,  a  walking  civitas,  and  thp 
individual  was  the  active  unit.  ]Mark  well  the  direct  con- 
trast between  this  state  and  the  one  found  south  of  the  Dan- 
ube and  west  of  the  Rhine.  In  the  one,  extreme  individual- 
ism ;  in  the  other  centralization,  law.  In  the  one  everything 
for  the  man,  in  the  other  nothing  of  importance  but  the  state. 
Neither  one  satisfies  all  the  conditions  of  modern  politics, 
but  a  hasty  glance  reveals  the  one  which  more  nearly  meas- 
ures up  to  that  standard.  Rome  has  given  us  in  a  manner 
at  least,  (1)  organized  Christianity,  or  the  Church;  (2)  the 


18  The  History  of  Christianity 

Roman  organization  and  administration;  (3)  civil  law  as  it 
relates  to  the  rights  of  persons  and  property;  (4)  the  gen- 
eral use  of  the  Latin  language.  Europe  has  profoundly  felt 
the  influence  of  each  of  them.  England  and  America,  but 
sparingly.  Over  all  the  Germanic  principles  have  finally 
dominated,  and  in  England  and  America  these  principles  have 
remained  nearly  pure. 

The  exodus  of  the  great  Germanic  tribes  from  their  old 
homes  was  preceded  by  several  subsidiary  movements,  such 
as  that  of  the  Cimbri  and  Teutones  into  Italy,  the  march  of 
Ariovistus  and  his  German  followers  in  8  b.  c.  and  the  inva- 
sion of  the  Maracomani  into  the  empire  in  180  a.  d.  But 
these  did  not  succeed  in  establishing  themselves  in  their  new 
quarters,  and  we  need  not  therefore  tarry  with  them  here, 
although  there  were  many  minor  tribes  that  played  a  part  in 
this  great  Exodus  ;  the  chief  ones  are:  (1)  the  Visigoths,  (2) 
the  Vandals,  (3)  the  Ostrogoths,  (4)  the  Lombards,  and 
(5)  the  Franks. 

When  or  for  what  reason  the  Germanic  family  of  which 
the  Goths  were  a  portion  migrated  westwards  from  the 
Asiatic  home  of  the  Aryan  race  it  is  impossible  to  tell.  The 
ethnologists  are  not  fully  settled  touching  the  matter  of  an 
Asiatic  home.  Narrowing  the  question  down  to  the  Goths 
merely  we  are  still  constrained  to  answer  in  the  same  waj^ 
The  origin  of  the  Goths  has  never  been  ascertained.  The 
first  clear  utterance  of  a  tradition  among  them  points  to  a 
Scandinavian  home,  and  some  historians  accept  this  as  a 
solution  of  the  problem,  even  going  so  far  as  to  claim  that 
the  Garden  of  Eden  was  located  in  the  Scandinavian  penin- 
sula and  that  there  the  human  race  originated.  There  are 
others  who  do  not  accept  this,  but  are  inclined  to  look  fur- 
ther. There  has  also  been  much  obscurity  even  in  the  use 
of  the  name,  Goths.  Professor  Freeman  says,  "  The  name 
has  been  used  as  one  of  contempt;  as  designating  anything 
mediaeval  or  '  romantic  ' ;  in  the  stead  of  Teutonic  as  a  wide 
term  of  designation ;  applied  to  a  style  of  architecture  which 
has  nothing  Gothic  save  the  name."  All  these  must  be  care- 
fully distinguished  from  the  prosaic  history  of  the  true  na- 
tional Goths  who  played  a  conspicuous  part  in  Europe  from 


The  Goths  19 

the  third  to  the  eighth  century  of  the  Christian  Era.  On 
many  grounds  the  Goths  may  claim  the  foremost  place  among 
the  Germanic  nations  who  had  a  share  in  the  breaking  up 
of  the  Roman  power.  They  were  probably  the  earliest  of 
the  Germanic  nations  to  establish  themselves  in  the  Empire 
as  distinguished  from  those  who  merely  ravaged  the  frontiers. 
Their  first  really  historic  appearance  was  upon  the  northern 
shore  of  the  Black  Sea;  their  great  historical  settlements 
were  made  in  the  far  west.  No  Germanic  people  has  played 
so  great  a  part  in  the  history  of  the  fourth,  fifth,  and  sixth 
centuries  and  no  Germanic  people  has  left  behind  it  such 
early  remains  of  a  written  native  literature.  But  probably 
the  strangest  thing  in  their  history  is  that,  after  playing  a 
chief  part  for  so  many  ages,  the  Goths  wholly  passed  away. 
They  exist  no  place  as  a  nation  nor  have  they  given  a  name 
to  any  part  of  Europe.  Franks,  Angles,  Saxons,  Burgun- 
dians,  Frisians,  Thuringians,  Lombards,  and  Bavarians  have 
each  and  all  left  a  name  upon  a  modern  map,  but  the  Goth 
has  silently  departed  and  is  as  trackless  as  is  a  mist  in  the 
desert. 

Historically  the  Goths  are  associated  with  the  Vandal  and 
Gepids.  The  historian  Procopius  regards  the  three  nations 
as  mere  sub-divisions  of  the  one,  and  makes  them  identical  in 
language,  customs,  and  laws.  There  is  no  doubt  of  the 
truth  of  this  statement  in  so  far  as  the  Gepids  are  concerned, 
but  the  Vandals  are  entitled  to  a  separate  classification. 

We  have  already  stated  that  the  Goths  had  a  traditional 
home  in  the  Scandinavian  peninsula,  and  later,  on  the  shores 
of  the  Baltic  Sea,  but  before  their  first  impact  with  the 
Romans  they  were  located  in  the  region  north  of  the  Black 
Sea  and  west  of  the  River  Don.  Sometime  later  they  moved 
to  the  west,  and  in  the  middle  of  the  third  century  are  found 
dwelling  upon  either  side  of  the  Dnieper,  extending  north- 
ward well  toward  its  source,  and  westward  along  the  shore 
of  the  Black  Sea,  to  the  River  Pruth.  It  was  doubtless  due 
to  the  fact  of  their  dwelling  upon  the  east  and  Avest  banks 
of  the  Dnieper,  respectively,  that  they  became  divided  into 
the  two  great  families  of  Ostrogoths  (East  Goths)  and  Visi- 
goths (West  Goths).     After  an  interval  in  which  they  sank 


20  The  History  of  Christianity 

almost  entirely  out  of  sight,  they  appeared  again  within  the 
bounds  of  the  Empire,  in  various  relations  of  aUiance  and 
enmity,  marching  to  and  fro,  but  not  making  or  even  at- 
tempting to  make  any  lasting  settlement.  In  the  fifth  cen- 
tury they  began  to  form  really  settled  powers.  This  last 
period  is  confined  to  the  short  and  brilliant  dominion  of  the 
Ostrogoths  in  Italy  and  the  more  lasting  but  not  less  bril- 
liant dominion  of  the  Visigoths  in  Gaul  and  Spain. 

The  Goths  are  first  vaguely  mentioned  as  coming  in  con- 
tact with  Roman  arms  in  the  short  and  disastrous  reign  of 
Antoninus  Caracalla  (211-217)  ;  but  they  begin  to  play  a 
distinct  part  in  the  reign  of  Alexander  Severus  (222-235), 
at  which  time  they  make  an  excursion  into  Dacia  and  lay 
waste  the  entire  country.  In  the  reign  of  Philip  (224-24<8) 
they  pass  the  Danube  and  ravage  Moesia  and,  in  251,  the 
Emperor  Decius  fell  in  battle  against  them.  From  this  time 
on  they  ravaged  eastern  Europe  and  western  Asia  far  and 
wide  until  the  year  269  when  they  were  defeated  by  Claudius 
and  were  checked  for  a  time  in  their  movements  into  the 
Roman  territory.  In  274,  the  able  Emperor  Aurelian  with- 
drew the  Roman  legions  from  Dacia  and  handed  over  that 
entire  country  to  the  Goths.  He  thus  attempted  by  strat- 
egy to  check  the  inroads  of  the  barbarians  and  to  draw  in 
the  boundaries  of  the  Empire  so  as  to  make  the  Danube  its 
northern  limit.  This  act  expanded  the  territory  of  the 
Goths  so  as  to  embrace  the  whole  northwestern  coast  of  the 
Black  Sea  and  made  of  them  an  allied  power  to  protect  the 
boundary  as  far  westward  as  the  modem  city  of  Buda-Pesth. 
This  policy  was  followed  by  a  peace  of  more  than  ninety 
3'ears.  Upon  the  withdrawal  of  the  Roman  troops,  the 
Visigoths  migrated  from  their  old  home  and  took  possession 
of  Dacia,  while  the  Ostrogoths  crossed  over  the  Dnieper  and 
occupied  the  territory  but  recently  vacated  by  their  kinsmen. 

During  the  next  century  the  Visigoths  were  converted  to 
the  Arian  form  of  Christianity  by  the  influence  of  Ulfilas, 
the  apostle  to  the  Goths,  who  for  forty  years  labored  in- 
cessantly with  these  people  to  convert  them  to  Christianity 
and  teach  them  the  rudiments  of  Roman  civilization.  It  was 
he   who    invented   the   Gothic    alphabet    and   translated   the 


Christianity  of  Ulflas  21 

Bible  into  the  language  of  his  people.  He  thus  became  the 
father  and  originator  of  all  that  Germanic  literature  which 
now  fills  the  major  part  of  the  space  in  the  libraries  of  the 
world.  For  the  future  philologist  he  performed  a  work  of 
priceless  value,  furnishing  a  specimen  of  the  Germanic  lan- 
guage earlier  by  three  hundred  A'ears  than  any  other  that 
has  been  preserved ;  but  this  was  not  his  purpose  when  he 
undertook,  unaided,  his  herculanean  task  of  turning  the 
Septuagint  and  the  Greek  New  Testament  into  the  language 
of  a  barbarous  and  unlettered  race.  Rather  was  he  inspired 
with  the  noble  thought  of  Christianizing  a  heathen  people 
and  civilizing  a  barbarous  race. 

Here  I  must  tarry  to  sa}^  that  the  form  of  Christianity 
taught  by  Ulfilas  and  earnestly  accepted  by  Visigoth,  Ostro- 
goth, Vandal,  Suevian,  Burgundian  and  Lombard, —  in  fact, 
by  all  the  Germans  except  by  the  Franks  and  the  Saxons, — 
was  but  a  slight  modification  of  that  of  Arius,  and  for 
which  he  and  his  followers  were  condemned  as  heretics  in  the 
first  Ecumenical  Council  held  at  Nicaea  in  325  which  also 
established  the  first  of  the  Christological  dogmas.  With- 
out entering  into  a  discussion  of  the  complex  metaphysical 
question  involved,  which  belongs  to  another  part  of  this 
w^ork,  it  may  be  here  sufficient  to  state  the  creed  adopted 
by  the  Arian  Synod  of  Constantinople,  in  360.  "  Neither 
Homo-ousios  nor  Homoi-ousios  is  to  be  found  in  our  faith. 
Jesus  Christ,  the  only-begotten  Son  of  God,  is  like  {Homo- 
ios)  to  the  Father  xvho  begot  Him  according  to  the  Scrip- 
tures." This  creed  was  signed  by  Bishop  Ulfilas  and  ap- 
parently believed  by  him.  WTien  on  his  death  bed  he  com- 
posed a  creed  which  contains  these  words :  "  I,  Ulfilas, 
bishop  and  confessor,  have  ever  thus  believed,  and  in  this, 
the  alone  true  faith,  do  I  make  my  testament  to  my  Lord. 
I  believe  that  there  is  one  God  the  Father,  alone  and  unbe- 
gotten  and  invisible:  and  in  his  only-begotten  Son  our  Lord 
and  our  God,  artificer  and  maker  of  every  creature,  having 
none  like  unto  himself  .  .  .  and  in  one  Holy  Spirit,  an 
illuminating  and  sanctifying  power,  neither  God  nor  Lord, 
but  the  minister  of  Christ,  subject  and  obedient  in  all  things 
to   the  Father."     There   was,   indeed,  very  little  difference 


22  The  History  of  Christianity 

between  Arian  and  Orthodox  and  that,  it  is  safe  to  saj,  no 
one  understood;  but  it  was  sufficient  to  throw  the  Christian 
world  into  an  un-Christian  strife  which  lasted  more  than 
one  hundred  years  and  deluged  the  earth  with  blood. 

About  the  middle  of  the  fourth  century  a  great  power 
arose  under  Ermanaric,  the  Ostrogoth.  He  seems  for  a 
time  to  have  united  the  Ostrogoths  and  Visigoths  under  his 
sway  and  to  have  extended  his  empire  from  the  Danube  to 
the  Baltic.  If  this  is  to  be  believed  at  all,  his  power  at 
best  was  merely  that  of  an  overlord  and  the  Ostrogoths  and 
Visigoths  still  remained  distinct,  the  latter  retaining  the 
power  of  making  war  and  peace  on  their  own  account.  To- 
ward the  end  of  the  reign  of  Ermanaric  several  causes  joined 
together  to  break  his  great  dominion  asunder.  His  people 
were  divided  into  Christian  and  non-Christian,  Visigoth  and 
Ostrogoth,  all  disunited  and  jarring.  But  the  greatest 
cause  of  division  was  from  without.  The  first  of  those  move- 
ments of  the  Turanian  race  into  the  territory  north  of  the 
Danube  was  now  taking  place.  Ermanaric  was  defeated  in 
an  attempt  to  stem  this  new  influx  of  barbarism  and  died 
shortly  afterwards  of  his  wounds  and  liis  grief  over  the 
overthrow  of  his  people.  The  Ostrogoths  stayed  north  of 
the  Danube  and  soon  passed  under  the  overlordship  of  the 
Hun.  The  Visigoths  put  themselves  under  the  protection 
of  the  Empire  and  were  first  assigned  a  district  near  the 
mouth  and  to  the  south  of  the  Danube,  but  afterwards  came 
into  possession  of  Moesia  and  a  portion  of  Thrace.  This 
great  migration  took  place  a  century  after  their  settlement 
in  Dacia,  under  their  leader,  Frithigern.  But  the  hoped- 
for  peace  which  led  this  nation,  now  Christian  and  semi- 
civilized,  to  seek  a  new  home  within  the  boundaries  of  the 
Empire  was  destined  to  fail  by  reason  of  the  greed  and  lust 
of  the  Roman  officials.  After  being  cheated  and  starved 
for  a  period  of  two  years,  the  Visigoths  once  more  unfurled 
their  banners  and  appealed  to  the  god  of  war.  In  the  great 
battle  of  Adrianople,  in  378,  they  completely  overthrew  the 
Roman  forces  under  the  leadership  of  the  emperor  Valens 
and  made  themselves  the  practical  masters  of  the  eastern 
Empire.     Valens  fell  in  the  battle,  and  his  successors,  Gra- 


The  Visigoths  23 

tian  and  Theodosius  the  Great,  made  terms,  in  381,  by  which 
the  Visigoths  were  given  lands  in  Moesia  and  Thrace.  The 
death  of  Theodosius,  which  took  place  in  395,  broke  up  this 
union  between  the  Visigoths  and  the  Empire.  The  Visi- 
goths chose  Alaric  as  their  king  and  again  unfurled  the 
national  banner. 

For  a  time  Alaric  seems  to  have  had  no  clear  idea  as  to 
his  course  of  action.  He  spent  some  time  in  marching  about 
in  a  rather  aimless  fashion  throughout  the  Eastern  Empire. 
He  next  undertook  a  series  of  campaigns  into  Italy  and  the 
West  where  he  had  determined  upon  making  a  permanent 
settlement.  He  took  with  him  his  wife  and  children,  the 
families  of  the  warriors,  and  all  the  treasures  and  spoil 
which  he  had  gathered  together  in  Greece  and  Illyricum. 
With  these  he  marched  from  Belgrade  up  the  valley  of  the 
Save  by  Laj'bach  and  the  passes  of  the  Julian  Alps,  and  so 
into  the  Venetian  plain,  beneath  the  very  walls  of  Aquileia, 
that  ancient  Roman  colony  and  fortress  that  showed  the 
foresight  of  the  Roman  senate  and  Emperors  in  its  careful 
construction  and  admirable  location.  Here  a  battle  took 
place  in  which  the  Roman  army  was  disastrously  defeated. 
Alaric  did  not  stop  to  lay  siege  to  Aquileia,  declaring  in  the 
language  of  his  predecessor,  "  that  he  warred  not  upon 
stones,"  but  passing  by  this  fortress,  marched  through  Vene- 
tia  to  the  strong  city  of  Ravenna.  Here  he  tarried  for  a 
year  in  a  vain  attempt  to  capture  the  city,  and  finally 
withdrew  toward  Milan.  While  besieging  the  city  of  Polen- 
tia,  he  was  attacked  by  the  forces  of  Stilicho  and  a  bloody 
if  somewhat  indecisive  battle  was  fought.  Claudian  states 
that  the  Goths  were  disastrously  defeated,  while  Gothic  his- 
torians claim  that  it  was  a  victory  for  Alaric.  In  any  case 
it  was  not  a  decisive  victory,  and  Alaric,  checked  in  his  de- 
scent upon  Rome,  turned  back  in  Macedonia  and  Greece. 
In  408,  after  the  death  of  Stilicho,  he  again  set  out  for  Rome 
and  thrice  attacked  the  city  which  finally  fell  in  410  and 
suffered  sacking  at  the  hands  of  barbarians  for  the  first 
time  since  Brennus. 

After  the  sack  of  Rome,  Alaric  marched  his  forces  to  the 
south  with  the  evident  purpose  of  crossing  over  to  Sicily  and 


^4  The  History  of  Christianity 

Africa,  thus  to  complete  the  conquest  of  the  Empire  of  the 
West.  He  reached  Reggio  where  he  began  the  collection 
of  ships  for  the  passage.  They,  however,  were  dispersed  by 
a  storm  and  a  portion  of  his  troops  that  had  already  em- 
barked perished.  While  tarrying  there  endeavoring  to  re- 
pair the  damages  done  to  his  plans  by  the  stonn,  he  suddenly 
died,  stricken  doubtless  with  Roman  fever.  His  faithful  fol- 
lowers buried  him  in  the  channel  of  the  rushing  Busento 
which  was  turned  aside  from  its  course  for  this  purpose. 

After  the  death  of  Alaric  his  brother-in-law,  Ataulfus,  led 
the  Visigoths  along  the  Turanian  coast,  through  the  passes 
of  the  Alps,  and  thence  into  Gaul,  destined  never  again  to 
pass  this  mountain  barrier  back  into  the  plains  and  vine- 
yards of  sunn^'  Italy.  Ataulfus  seems  to  have  been  so  far 
won  over  by  contact  with  Roman  law  and  civilization  that 
lie  was  unwilling  to  be  the  instrument  of  her  destruction. 
Ry  his  Roman  life  and  training  he  was  doubtless  convinced 
that  the  law  and  civilization  of  his  adopted  country  were  far 
superior  to  those  of  his  own  people.  The  historian  Orosius 
tells  a  story  of  Ataulfus  that  carries  out  this  interpreta- 
tion. In  pursuit  of  his  new  peace-policy  he  forms  an  alli- 
ance with  Rome,  promising  to  defend  her  against  her  ene- 
mies. As  a  counter  pledge  of  good  faith  of  the  Emperor 
Honorius  he  is  given  in  marriage  Placidia,  the  sister  of  the 
Emperor  and  daughter  of  Theodosius  the  Great.  This 
beautiful  young  woman,  taken  captive  in  the  sack  of  Rome, 
in  410,  since  then  had  been  kept  a  roval  prisoner  in  the 
camp  of  the  Goths  and  had  formed  a  romantic  attachment 
for  the  handsome  and  dashing  young  king  of  the  Visigoths. 
But  peace  did  not  last  for  long.  Ataulfus  had  negotiated 
for  four  years  to  bring  about  his  marriage  with  Placidia. 
Only  a  year  afterwards  he  was  murdered  by  one  of  his  serv- 
ants and  a  representative  of  a  rival  house.  Singeric  was 
raised  to  the  throne.  He  was  in  all  probabilit}'  a  party  to 
the  assassination  of  Ataulfus,  and  proceeded  to  the  destruc- 
tion of  any  possible  rivals  by  slaying  the  infant  children  of 
Ataulfus  by  a  previous  marriage.  He  ruled  but  seven  days 
when  he  in  turn  was  killed  and  was  succeeded  by  the  brave 
Walia,   a  worthy   successor  of  Ataulfus,  but   probably   no 


Theodoric  Succeeds  to  the  Throne  25 

relative  of  his.  Walia  finally  received  as  a  reward  for  his 
sers'ices  to  Rome  a  grant  of  land  in  Spain  and  the  south  of 
Gaul,  countries  then  overrun  and  laid  waste  by  swarms  of 
Suevi,  Alans  and  Vandals.  He,  like  the  Israelites,  had  to 
fight  for  liis  inheritance,  if  he  would  enter  it.  Notwith- 
standing all  this,  he  succeeded  in  establishing  a  well-ordered 
kingdom  on  both  sides  of  the  Pyrenees,  the  capital  of  which 
was  the  city  of  Toulouse.  During  his  reign  the  Suevi  held 
the  highland  districts  of  the  northwest,  while  the  Basques 
maintained  their  independence  in  the  rugged  mountains  of 
Navarre  and  Biscay.  This  marks  the  beginning  of  the  first 
Visigothic  kingdom.  Later,  its  boundaries  were  extended 
northward  to  the  Loire  and  south  to  the  Mediterranean  and 
Atlantic.  For  nearly  one  hundred  years  the  kingdom  was 
Gallic  rather  than  Spanish. 

Theodoric  (418-431)  followed  Walia  as  king  of  the  Visi- 
goths. He  was  generally,  like  Walia,  earnest  in  keeping 
faith  with  the  Romans,  but  in  this  he  had  a  difficult  part  to 
play.  During  his  long  reign  his  people  wholly  emerged 
from  barbarism  and  became  quite  thoroughly  Romanized  in 
customs  and  laws.  In  431,  when  Gaul  and  Spain,  as  well  as 
Italy,  were  threatened  with  destruction  by  the  swarth}' 
snub-nosed  troops  of  Attila,  this  brave  old  warrior,  Theo- 
doric, allied  himself  with  the  Romans  against  the  common 
enemy  and  in  this  way  was  found  with  all  his  forces  side  by 
side  with  Aetius  at  the  great  battle  of  Chalons  where  he  fell 
at  the  head  of  his  troops  while  beating  back  the  fierce  onset 
of  the  Huns.  Here,  on  the  field  of  battle,  possibly  at  mid- 
night, "  with  his  martial  cloak  around  him  "  his  trusty  fol- 
lowers laid  to  rest  Theodoric,  the  "  warrior  and  civilizer." 

Euric,  the  eldest  son  of  Theodoric,  was  elevated  to  the 
vacant  throne  by  the  Visigothic  warriors  while  still  on  the 
battle  field,  and  reigned  from  451  to  485.  He  extended  the 
Gothic  conquests  to  embrace  all  Spain  save  that  portion 
occupied  by  the  Suevi,  and  pushed  the  boundaries  of  his 
kingdom  northward  to  the  Loire.  The  work  of  civilization, 
well  advanced  by  his  father,  went  rapidly  on,  but  the  Arian- 
ism  of  the  Goth  interfered  with  the  assimilation  of  the  two 
peoples.      His  son  and  successor,  Alaric  II  (485-507),  was 


26  The  History  of  Christianity 

compelled  to  enter  into  a  struggle  with  Clovis  and  his  sons 
for  the  possession  of  Gaul.  This  was  really  a  religious  war 
and  was  brought  about  by  the  action  of  the  Catholic  clergy 
of  Aquitaine  in  sowing  dissension  among  Alaric's  subjects 
and  appealing  to  the  Franks  for  aid.  The  Arian  Goth  was 
forced  to  yield  to  the  Catholic  Frank.  Alaric  was  killed  in 
battle,  and  Toulouse,  the  Visigothic  capital,  was  taken  by 
the  Franks.  It  was  only  by  the  intervention  of  Theodoric 
the  Great  that  any  territory  north  of  the  Pyrenees  was 
saved  to  the  Visigoths.  The  Ostrogothic  army  routed  the 
combined  forces  of  the  Burgundians  and  Franks  in  a  battle 
near  Aries  and  slew  thirty  thousand  of  their  warriors.  This 
kept  from  the  greedy  hands  of  Clovis,  Septimania,  Provence 
and  the  Narbonnes  district.  The  capital  of  the  Visgoths 
was  removed  to  Toledo  and  Visigothic  activity  henceforth 
confined  itself  to  Spain.  Following  the  disastrous  conflict 
with  the  Franks,  the  Visigoths  found  themselves  in  a  preca- 
rious condition.  Their  king  was  a  mere  child  and  during 
his  long  minority  his  kingdom  was  under  the  overlordship 
of  his  grandfather  Theodoric.  He  lived  but  a  short  time 
after  reaching  his  majority  and  with  him  perished  the  last 
of  the  Bait  dynasty.  The  Visigoths  had  no  longer  any  royal 
house  from  which  to  choose  a  king  and  this  led  to  a  dan- 
gerous independence  on  the  part  of  the  nobility,  each  influ- 
ential leader  aspiring  himself  to  be  king.  They  finalh' 
elected  Theudis,  a  renowned  warrior,  to  the  vacant  throne 
and  he  proved  to  be  a  most  able  ruler.  From  Theudis  to 
Roderic  there  were  twenty-three  elective  kings.  Of  these 
nine  were  deposed  and  seven  murdered,  showing  what  a  tur- 
bulent and  unsettled  state  of  affairs  the  kingdom  was  in. 
The  masters  of  Spain  were  not  a  very  numerous  tribe  and 
were  scattered  thinly  among  masses  of  a  subject  population 
kept  down  by  the  power  of  the  sword.  Besides,  the  con- 
querors were  weak  because  of  the  lack  of  any  strong  cen- 
tralized power  and  the  kings  were  kept  in  a  constant  strug- 
gle to  maintain  themselves  among  their  proud  and  dissatisfied 
nobles.  No  wars  were  carried  on  for  conquest.  Religious 
strife  was  continuous  and  bitter.  The  inner  organization 
of  the  Visigothic  realm  presents  a  changed  picture  from  the 


Visigothic  Law  27 

simple  tribal  organization  of  freemen  such  as  we  found  be- 
fore the  migration.  They  had  divided  their  conquests  into 
districts  following  the  old  Roman  boundaries  of  provinces 
and  cwitates.  These  were  under  the  control  of  dukes  or 
counts  who  were  attended  by  a  bodyguard  of  personal  de- 
pendents called  hucellarii  or  saeones,  the  one-time  simple 
freemen,  now  raised  to  the  rank  of  a  lesser  nobility.  Over 
these  dukes  and  counts  the  king  had  but  little  real  control. 
There  was  a  very  small  body  of  lesser  freeholders  wedged  in 
between  the  official  nobles  and  their  sworn  retainers.  This 
was  an  organization  very  similar  to  the  later  feudalism,  con- 
sisting of  a  servile  population  of  Hispano-Roman  blood  held 
in  subjection  by  a  mere  sprinkling  of  men-at-arms  bound  by 
oath  to  follow  some  great  noble.  The  Goths  were  still  gov- 
erned by  their  own  customary  law,  not  yet  reduced  to  writ- 
ten form.  The  Hispano-Roman  population  made  use  of  the 
Theodosian  code,  one  of  the  early  collections  of  Roman  law. 
While  the  kings  of  the  Visigoths  were  generally  weak  and 
under  the  control  of  their  warlike  nobles,  there  were  not 
lacking  examples  of  able  men  who  caused  the  royal  power 
to  be  respected  and  who  accomplished  something  towards 
the  consolidation  of  the  state.  Perhaps  the  most  powerful 
of  these  rulers  was  Leovigild  who  governed  Spain  from  572 
to  586.  He  subdued  the  Basques  and  overthrew  the  last 
of  the  Suevian  kings.  Next,  he  undertook  a  campaign 
against  his  own  rebellious  nobility  and  executed,  one  after 
another,  all  the  more  unruly  of  the  Visigothic  chiefs.  In 
their  stead  he  appointed  counts  and  dukes  from  among  his 
own  immediate  followers  whom  he  thought  he  could  trust. 
He  established  his  capital  permanently  at  Toledo  and  there 
assumed  something  of  the  grandeur  and  state  of  the  Roman 
Caesars.  He  re-issued  the  coin  of  the  realm  with  his  own 
inscription  instead  of  having  it  as  previously  bear  the  name 
of  the  Roman  emperors.  He  defeated  the  Franks  in  their 
attempt  to  snatch  Septimania  from  Visigothic  control. 
Some  time  before  his  death  he  induced  the  Visigoths  to  elect 
Recarred,  his  second  son,  as  his  colleague,  and  to  salute  him 
as  king,  thus  securing  his  peaceful  succession  upon  the  death 
of  his  father,  in  586.     Recarred  was  a  worthy  son  of  his 


28  The  History  of  Christianity 

father  and  was  destined  to  set  his  mark  upon  the  Visigothic 
kingdom  no  less  firmly  than  Leovigild  had  done.  The  father 
had  saved  the  state  from  anarchy  by  means  of  his  powerful 
arm;  the  son  started  it  upon  a  new  and  altered  course  of 
existence,  and  introduced  a  better  element  into  its  political 
and  religious  life  by  the  great  change  which  has  been  con- 
nected with  his  name,  the  conversion  of  the  Visigoths  to  the 
orthodox  faith. 

Recarred  was  the  son  of  a  Roman  mother  and  had  re- 
ceived from  her  a  bias  towards  the  orthodox  belief,  but  he 
was  pohtic  enough  to  keep  this  to  himself  during  his  father's 
lifetime.  Indeed,  all  the  evidence  goes  to  show  that  he  was 
not  a  man  of  deep  religious  convictions,  but  he  saw  clearly 
that  the  only  way  the  Visigothic  state  could  ever  be  firmly 
established  was  by  removing  the  barrier  of  religion  that  lay 
between  the  ruling  and  subject  classes.  He  was  himself 
convinced  that  the  Arianism  of  the  Goths  was  more  a  mat- 
ter of  race-pride  than  fanatical  belief,  and  he,  therefore, 
decided  to  lead  the  way,  trusting  that  mild  measures  and  cau- 
tious changes  would  lead  his  countrymen  to  follow  in  his 
footsteps.  He  declared  himself  a  Catholic  in  586  and  re- 
ceived the  blessing  of  his  uncle,  the-  Metropolitan  of  Seville. 
Nearly  all  his  immediate  followers,  thereupon,  took  the  same 
step  while  the  aristocracy  and  the  Arian  episcopate  shortly 
afterwards  conformed  to  orthodoxy.  The  church  on  its 
side  made  the  change  easy  by  not  insisting  upon  any  new 
baptism  of  the  converts.  It  was  deemed  sufficient  for  them 
to  attend  a  Catholic  place  of  worship  and  to  receive  the 
blessing  of  an  orthodox  priest.  Thus  within  the  space  of 
two  years  the  conversion  of  the  nation  was  brought  about 
in  a  peaceful  manner  by  a  cautious  and  unemotional  states- 
man. From  this  time  forth  the  church  had  great  influence 
among  the  Visigoths  and  the  Catholic  bishops  became  the 
most  powerful  supporters  of  the  crown.  In  fact,  the  Roman 
clergy  soon  became  too  powerful,  having  more  members  in 
the  National  assembly  than  the  entire  number  of  dukes  and 
counts.  They  soon  led  the  king  into  the  persecutions  of 
both  Arians  and  Jews  and  brought  in  a  new  danger  to  the 
state. 


Disappearance  of  Visigoths  29 

During  all  this  time  the  Gothic  conquerors,  always  a 
minority,  were  losing  that  rough  and  martial  vigor  which 
so  preeminently  characterized  them  and  which  made  their 
conquest  possible,  while  they  persistently  refused  full  civic 
rights  to  the  subject  provincials.  Thus  there  grew  with 
ever  widening  marks  of  demarkation  two  distinct  and 
separate  classes,  different  in  race,  with  no  common  rights 
and  consequently  no  common  interests.  This  unwelded  mass 
was  totally  unfit  to  receive  the  shock  of  the  Saracen  on- 
slaught. So  when,  in  711,  that  wave  of  fanaticism  broke 
against  the  throne  of  "  Roderick,  the  last  of  the  Goths," 
the  whole  fabric  of  the  state  fell  like  a  house  of  cards,  and 
one  lost  battle  by  the  silver  waters  of  the  Guadalete,  where 
the  German  went  down  before  the  Saracen,  and  the  crescent 
supplanted  the  cross,  turned  aside  for  seven  centuries  the 
course  of  Spanish  history. 

From  this  disastrous  battle  only  remnants  of  the  Visi- 
goths, together  with  Roman  and  Spanish  provincials,  es- 
caped and  maintained  their  independence  during  the  entire 
Moorish  occupancy  in  the  mountains  of  Asturias.  Here  the 
fires  of  adversity  welded  into  one  homogeneous  mass  Goth, 
Roman,  and  Spaniard;  so  the  new  Christian  state  which 
emerged  from  these  mountains  bears  little  trace  of  the  Goth ; 
and  only  now  and  then  a  name,  and  anon  a  fleck  in  the  blue 
blood  of  some  Spanish  hidalgo,  as  was  the  case  with  Philip 
II,  serves  to  keep  alive  the  memory  of  those  fair-skinned, 
chestnut-haired  warriors  of  the  Danube,  who,  conquering 
and  to  conquer,  descended  among  the  sunburnt  populations 
of  the  South.  It  is  only  when  we  examine  the  language  of 
modem  Spain  that  we  find  the  German  ancestor. 

When  Stilicho  was  called  upon  to  meet  and  turn  back  the 
Visigoths  under  Alaric  from  their  descent  upon  Italy,  he 
was  compelled  to  call  in  his  troops  from  the  posts  along  the 
Rhine  and  the  Danube  and  mass  them  against  this  danger 
threatening  from  the  east.  In  this  way  almost  the  entire 
northern  frontier  of  the  western  empire  was  left  exposed,  and 
whole  troops  of  barbarians,  who  for  some  time  had  been  cast- 
ing envious  eyes  upon  the  vineyards  beyond  the  Rhine,  now 
came  pouring  into  the  empire.     It  would  be  useless  to  trace 


30  The  History  of  Christianity 

here  the  fortunes  of  each  one  of  these.  I  can  only  tarry 
for  such  as  founded  states  and  so  helped  in  the  making  of 
modem  Europe.  Near  the  Goths,  before  they  had  deserted 
their  old  home  on  the  Baltic  for  their  sunnier  one  on  the 
shores  of  the  Black  Sea,  dwelt  the  Vandals,  their  kindred, 
who  spoke  the  same  language  and  used  the  same  laws.  They 
had  also  been  converted  to  the  same  faith,  that  of  Arian 
Christianity.  Somewhat  cruder,  more  cruel,  and  less  sol- 
dierly than  the  gentleman-Goth  were  the  Vandals,  but  they, 
nevertheless,  like  all  their  German  kindred,  were  made  after 
an  heroic  pattern.  Very  early  in  their  history  they  moved 
southward  into  what  is  now  Bohemia  and,  about  330  a.  d., 
were  decimated  by  the  Goths.  They  entreated  Constantine, 
Emperor  of  Rome,  to  allow  them  to  settle  as  his  subjects 
in  Pannonia.  Their  request  was  granted  and  for  more  than 
half  a  century  the  Vandals  were  the  obedient  servants  of  the 
Roman  Empire.  They  were  here  at  the  time  of  the  battle 
of  Adrianople.  In  the  year  406,  having  become  unsettled 
by  reason  of  Alaric's  example,  they  recrossed  the  Danube 
and,  together  with  the  SuevI  and  Turanian  Alans,  moved 
rapidly  to  the  northwest  through  their  old-time  hunting 
grounds  and,  finding  the  Rhine  frontier  unguarded,  crossed 
the  river  at  Mainz  and  proceeded  to  ravage  Belgic  Gaul. 
Defeated  by  the  Franks,  they  moved  steadily  southward  and 
in  the  year  409  are  found  at  the  foot  of  the  Pyrenees  thun- 
dering at  the  gate  of  Spain.  Here  they  met  with  no  oppo- 
sition and  so  ravaged  without  hindrance  and  without  mercy 
Hither  and  Farther  Spain.  In  414  the  Visigoths  enter 
Spain  and  finally  drive  the  Vandals  southward  where,  at  the 
invitation  of  Count  Boniface,  they  cross  over  into  Africa  in 
429  and  begin  the  conquest  of  that  "  granary  of  Rome." 

From  this  time  on  the  history  of  the  Vandals  is  but  the 
biography  of  one  man.  This  man  was  Gaeseric  (Genseric), 
the  illegitmate  son  of  the  old  Vandal  king  Godigisclus.  If 
we  except  the  meteoric  career  of  Attila,  this  man  Gaeseric 
was  for  fifty  years  the  foremost  man  in  all  Europe.  Until 
he  arose  his  nation  can  scarcely  be  said  to  have  conquered  an 
enemy.  They  were  defeated  by  the  Goths  in  Bohemia,  the 
Franks  on  the  banks  of  the  Rhine,  and  generally  worsted  by 


The  Vandals  31 

the  Visigoths  in  Spain,  so  that  when  Gaeseric  became  king 
and  led  them  into  Africa,  scarce  20,000  fighting  men  were 
left  of  the  great  confederacy  of  peoples  which  twenty-three 
years  before  left  their  homes  in  Pannonia.  The  bones  of 
the  rest  were  bleaching  on  the  plains  and  in  the  mountain 
passes  of  Gaul  and  Spain,  In  ten  years,  by  a  series  of  un- 
broken victories,  Gaeseric  made  himself  master  of  Roman 
Africa  and  changed  his  defeated  Vandals  into  an  invincible 
army.  It  was  to  this  barbarian  that  Carthage  surrendered 
and  the  Roman  soldier,  who  for  seven  hundred  years  had,  as 
conqueror,  looked  out  from  her  towers  and  countermarched 
upon  her  shores,  now  sadly  departed,  leaving  at  last  to  the 
foe  the  land  which  had  been  so  rudely  wrenched  from  Han- 
nibal at  Zama.  In  one  year's  time  he  converted  his  lands- 
men into  sailors  and  he,  who  was  dependent  in  429,  upon  a 
renegade  Roman  nobleman  for  a  passage  across  the  Straits, 
now  had  the  finest  fleet  on  the  Mediterranean.  An  incident 
of  this  period  of  naval  activitj^  was  the  sacking  of  Rome  in 
455.  The  emperor,  Valentinian  III,  who  had  made  peace 
with  Gaeseric  at  the  expense  of  his  possessions  in  Africa, 
had  been  recently  assassinated,  probably  at  the  instigation 
of  the  aged  senator,  Maximus  by  name,  who  was  thereupon 
elevated  to  the  purple  and  who  compelled  Eudoxia,  the  widow 
of  the  late  emperor,  to  marry  him.  Tliis  beautiful  woman, 
whose  widow's  weeds  were  scarce  three  weeks  old,  seemed 
not  to  have  wished,  at  the  age  of  thirty-three,  for  a  hus- 
band of  sixty-five,  and  in  her  extremity  invited  the  Vandal 
king  to  come  over  and  sever  the  newly  made  bonds.  Gae- 
seric was  no  Don  Quixote,  but  he  was  "  spoiling  for  a  fight  " 
and  eager  for  this  pillage  of  the  Eternal  City.  He  gra- 
ciously accepted  this  kind  invitation  and  together  with  his 
yellow-haired  giants  set  sail  as  the  crow  flies  from  Carthage 
to  Rome.  Here  he  found  Maximus  already  dead,  so,  having 
no  bonds  to  sever,  he  gave  his  immediate  and  undivided  atten- 
tion to  hunting  out  and  storing  in  his  curved  ships  every- 
thing of  value  which  could  be  found  in  the  city.  Thus, 
without  a  blow  being  struck  by  Roman  citizens  for  their  de- 
fence, the  Vandal  king  spent  a  delightful  fortnight  in  pillage 
and  then,  with  his  vessels  laden  with  gold  and  silver,  the 


32  The  History  of  Christianity 

precious  statues  of  the  deified  dwellers  on  the  Palatine,  and 
Roman  citizens  for  slaves,  sailed  away  for  Carthage. 

At  home  we  find  the  Vandals  settling  down  to  an  orderly 
life  and  rapidly  adapting  themselves  to  the  new  conditions 
by  which  they  are  surrounded.  Immediately  upon  the  con- 
quest of  Africa,  Gaeseric  confiscated  the  larger  portion  of 
the  lands  in  accordance  with  the  world-wide  principle  that 
to  the  victor  belongs  the  spoil.  To  understand  this  Vandal 
settlement,  it  will  be  necessary  to  keep  in  mind  the  divisions 
of  the  Roman  territory  in  Africa.  Beginning  with  Zeuge- 
tana  or  the  Pro-Consular  province,  the  land  about  the  city 
of  Carthage,  some  hundred  miles  long  by  fifty  wide,  there  lay 
to  the  south  a  much  larger  district,  though  not  so  fertile, 
called  Byzacena ;  to  the  west  of  these  lay  Numidia,  and  still 
farther  west  the  various  divisions  of  Mauritania.  Gaeseric 
settled  his  forces  in  Zeugetana,  the  most  fertile  of  all  the 
lands  of  Africa,  bestowing  upon  each  of  his  soldiers  land  in 
fee.  This  plan  made  of  the  Vandals  a  compact  body  that 
could  be  easily  gathered  together  in  time  of  danger.  These 
he  organized  in  groups  or  bodies  of  one  thousand.  He  fur- 
ther confiscated  all  the  best  estates  throughout  Byzacena 
and  large  portions  of  Numidia  and  kept  them  for  himself  or 
bestowed  them  on  his  sons.  Upon  all  these  lands  the  native 
population  still  resided,  but  were  reduced  to  the  condition  of 
slaves.  The  old-time  owner  was  now  a  mere  overseer  and 
director  of  other  slaves  who  tilled  the  soil  and  gathered  in 
the  harvest  for  a  barbarian  ruler.  The  humiliation  of  the 
native  orthodox  population  was  now  complete.  After  the 
victorious  Vandal  hosts  were  provided  for,  there  still  re- 
mained a  large  portion  of  land  of  poorer  quality,  deemed 
undesirable  by  Gaeseric  and  his  sons  though  in  a  fair  state 
of  cultivation,  throughout  Byzacena  and  Numidia,  together 
with  all  of  Mauritania  and  the  Islands  of  the  Mediterranean 
which  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  Gaeseric.  These  were 
left  in  the  possession  of  the  former  owners,  the  provincials, 
who  were  free,  but  who  bore  all  the  burdens  of  taxation  save 
military  service.  The  lowest  stratum  of  native  population, 
the  burgesses  of  towns  and  those  who  had  small  holdings  of 
undesirable  land,  Gaeseric  paid  no  attention  to  but  left  free 


Government  and  Religion  of  the  Vandals  33 

from  all  burdens.  It  thus  came  about  that  there  were  three" 
classes  of  free  population :  the  Vandals  who  formed  the  no- 
bility and  who  bore  all  the  military  burdens,  but  paid  no 
taxes ;  the  provincials  who  bore  all  fiscal  burdens  but  gave 
no  army  service;  and  the  proletariat  who  were  protected  in 
their  little  holdings  and  paid  nothing  either  in  service  or 
money.  This  liberality  to  the  poor  on  the  part  of  Gaeseric 
may  have  been  due  to  contempt  felt  for  so  down-trodden 
and  helpless  a  class  but,  whatever  the  motive,  the  resultant 
can  have  been  nothing  but  good  to  those  thus  favored.  The 
Vandal  was  ignorant  of  any  far-reaching  scheme  of  taxation 
like  that  made  use  of  by  the  Roman  and  the  heaviest  burdens 
inflicted  by  him  must  have  been  light  in  comparison  to  those 
borne  under  the  old  regime.  The  minor  details  of  govern- 
ment in  the  Vandal  kingdom  were  still  in  the  hands  of  trained 
Roman  secretaries  who,  as  a  beaurocracy  of  office  holders, 
administered  the  ordinary  functions  of  their  office  as  if  no 
change  had  taken  place. 

Like  almost  every  other  Germanic  nation,  the  Vandals 
had  shared  in  that  great  process  of  religious  change  of 
which  the  bishop  Ulfilas  was  the  most  conspicuous  agent. 
They  had  been  converted  to  the  Arian  form  of  Christianity 
before  setting  out  upon  their  long  migration  and  had  come 
into  Spain  with  a  complete  hierarchy  of  priests  and  bishops. 
When  they  reached  Africa,  they  had  already  been  at  feud 
with  the  orthodox  for  nearly  a  century  and  their  hearts  were 
hot  with  hatred  against  them.  Indeed,  it  has  been  stated 
that  the  chief  purpose  in  the  heart  of  Gaeseric  was  the  up- 
rooting and  destruction  of  orthodox  Christianity.  The 
Roman  province  of  Africa  was  preeminently  the  home  of 
theological  passion  and  bigotry.  Carthage  was  the  seat  of 
a  great  theological  school.  Hippo  was  the  home  of  Augus- 
tine. The'  Donatist  Controversy  had  raged  for  four  gen- 
erations and  had  not  yet  spent  its  fury.  This  was  but  a 
sorry  place  to  look  for  either  tolerance  or  pity.  Gaeseric 
and  his  followers,  when  their  arms  had  overthrown  all  opposi- 
tion, began  a  persecution  of  the  orthodox  which  was  fierce 
and  bitter.  Many  churches  were  burned  or  thrown  down 
and  the  services  of  the  orthodox  clergy  forbidden.     To  what 


34  The  History  of  Christianity 

extent  these  persecutions  really  went  it  is  now  impossible  to 
tell.  There  was  probabl}'  very  little  actual  loss  of  life  and 
the  martyr's  crown  was  but  sparingly  bestowed.  But  the 
spirit  of  bitter  hatred  was  fostered  and  the  seeds  of  strife 
were  destined  to  bear  bloody  fruit. 

Before  leaving  Pannonia  the  Vandals  had  learned  some- 
thing of  the  arts  of  peace  and  now  they  rapidly  lost,  just 
as  the  Visigoths  had  done,  much  of  their  rudeness  and  bar- 
barism; settled  as  they  were  among  vastly  more  numerous 
provincials  whose  civilization  was  much  superior  to  their 
own,  they  not  only  learned  the  cultivation  of  the  soil,  the 
raising  of  fruit,  and  the  making  of  wine,  but  they  also 
learned  the  effeminate  and  luxurious  vices  of  the  conquered 
peoples  and  in  this  way  softened  their  own  physical  and 
moral  fiber.  In  477,  one  year  after  the  fall  of  the  Roman 
Empire  of  the  West  and  fifty  years  after  his  succession,  Gae- 
seric  died  and  with  him  also  passed  away  the  greatness  of 
the  Vandals.  He  left  to  a  degenerate  son  a  kingdom  with  a 
full  treasury,  a  fine  fleet,  and  a  palace  adorned  with  all  the 
treasures  taken  at  the  sack  of  Rome.  But  this  kingdom  was 
torn  with  religious  dissensions  and  numerous  revolts  of  the 
Moors,  while  the  small  Vandal  force  was  unable  to  cope  with 
the  barbarian  rulers  of  Spain  and  Italy.  Fifty-seven  years 
after  the  death  of  its  founder  the  Vandal  kingdom  went  to 
pieces  before  the  onslaught  of  Belisarius,  the  famous  general 
of  Justinian,  and  Africa  was  for  a  time  re-united  to  the 
Roman  Empire.  The  Vandal,  like  the  Ostrogoth,  passed 
away  and  we  search  in  vain  for  any  trace  of  the  bold  Ger- 
man, save  here  and  there  a  name  mayhap.  The  stubborn 
Arianism  of  the  Vandals  forbade  amalgamation  zcith  the 
African  provincials  and  their  acts  of  persecution  stirred  up 
such  hatred  that  the  orthodox  church,  once  victorious, 
blotted  them  from  the  face  of  the  earth. 

In  tracing  the  general  history  of  the  Goths  I  showed  how 
the  Ostrogoths  were  largely  subdued  by  the  Huns,  when  that 
people  passed  into  Europe  in  375  and  were,  by  reason  of  vas- 
salage, forced  to  join  them  in  their  march  against  the  Visi- 
goths in  Gaul  and  the  forces  of  the  Western  Empire,  now 
marshalled  under  the  renowned  old  soldier  Aetius.     Thus, 


The  Ostrogoths  35 

they  took  an  unfortunate  part  in  the  great  battle  of  Chalons. 

When  the  Hunnish  power  broke  in  pieces  after  the  death 
of  Attila,  the  Ostrogoths  regained  their  independence  in  con- 
flict with  his  sons  and,  after  various  wanderings  to  the  north 
of  the  Alps,  seemed  to  have  settled  themselves  for  a  rest  in 
the  lands  of  Pannonia  and  the  valley  of  the  Danube.  They 
went  through  the  form  of  having  this  land  granted  to  them 
by  the  Eastern  Empire,  as  it  had  been  previously  granted 
in  turn  to  the  Visigoths  and  the  Huns,  both  of  which  nations 
had  deserted  it  to  pass  into  Italy.  Here  for  nearly  fifty 
years  the  Ostrogoths  played  the  same  part  as  the  Visigoths 
had  played  a  century  before.  They  marched  to  and  fro  in 
almost  every  conceivable  relation  of  friendsliip  and  enmity 
with  the  Eastern  Empire  until,  just  as  the  Visigoths  had 
done  before  them,  they  one  day  marshalled  their  forces  and 
passed  into  the  West.  In  one  respect  the  history  of  the 
Ostrogoths  is  quite  similar  to  that  of  the  Vandals,  in  that  it 
is  little  more  than  a  biography  of  one  man.  In  power  to 
dominate  the  minds  of  others,  in  ready  grasp  of  life's  inter- 
ests, and  in  ability  to  turn  its  chances  to  his  own  advantage 
there  is  a  marked  similarity  between  Gaeseric,  the  Vandal 
hero,  and  Theodoric,  the  Ostrogothic  king  and  preeminently 
the  great  man  of  his  time.  And  yet  almost  as  striking  are 
the  points  of  contrast.  In  order  in  any  way  to  comprehend 
the  half  century  of  Ostrogothic  history  subsequent  to  the 
death  of  Attila,  it  will  be  necessary  to  study  the  history  and 
character  of  the  one  great  man  of  the  period,  Theodoric. 

Theodoric  was  born  in  the  year  454<,  two  years  after 
Attila's  death  and  upon  the  very  day  of  the  battle  in  which 
his  father,  Theodemir,  succeeded  in  breaking  the  chains  of 
bondage  which  bound  the  Goth  to  the  Hun,  by  completely 
overthrowing  Irnack,  the  youngest  of  the  sons  of  Attila, 
with  all  his  forces  in  the  battle  of  Nidad.  At  the  age  of 
eight  years,  he  was  sent  to  Constantinople  as  a  hostage  of 
the  Emperor  Leo,  where  he  learned  to  speak  Greek  and 
gained  something  of  the  polish  of  the  courtly  society  of 
Constantinople,  but,  whether  from  lack  of  desire  to  learn,  or 
more  probably  from  lack  of  desire  on  their  part  to  teach, 
he  went  back  home  at  the  age  of  seventeen  without  knowing 


36  The  History  of  Christianity 

how  to  write.  He  had  breathed  for  some  ten  years  a 
classic  atmosphere  without  having  had  born  in  him  the  love 
of  letters.  But  he  was  a  strong  and  manly  youth  who  de- 
lighted his  old  father  more  by  his  beauty,  strength,  and 
stature,  and  ability  to  ride,  shoot,  and  hurl  the  spear,  than 
he  ever  could  have  done  with  learning.  It  was  this  bar- 
barian outcropping  in  him  together  with  the  proud  blood 
of  the  Amals  which  was  seen  to  surge  in  his  red  cheeks  that 
immediately  won  for  him  the  hearty  love  and  following  of  his 
warrior  nation.  Even  if  he  did  have  a  little  of  the  Roman 
polish,  he  still  kept  his  German  heart.  When,  in  475,  Theo- 
doric,  at  the  age  of  twenty,  succeeded  his  father,  he  was 
summoned  to  the  court  of  Constantinople  where  he  was  made 
a  Roman  patrician  and  consul,  and  given  command  of  the 
Palatine  troops.  He  Vas  even  adopted  into  the  house- 
hold of  the  Emperor  and  offered  a  princess  of  the  royal  blood 
to  wife.  Here  he  tarried  for  some  seven  years  and  forgot 
among  the  allurements  of  cpurt  and  his  struggles  for  su- 
premacy with  another  Ostrogothic  leader,  who  bore  his  name, 
the  interest  and  necessities  of  his  nation.  He  was  recalled 
unto  himself  and  his  higher  duties  by  an  embassy  from  his 
own  people  whose  numbers  were  at  this  time  being  thinned 
by  famine,  who  said,  "  King,  while  thou  art  fattening  on  the 
feasts  of  the  Greeks,  thy  people  are  dying  of  famine.  For 
their  interests  and  thine  own,  arise  and  return  among  us ; 
for,  if  left  to  destruction,  we  will  ourselves  go  forth  and  seek 
new  lands."  Roused  by  these  reproaches,  Theodoric  decided 
to  give  up  his  pleasures  and  bickerings  in  the  East  and  re- 
turn to  his  own  people.  Pannonia  now  seemed  too  narrow 
and  restrained  for  the  Goths  and  Theodoric  decided  to  act 
upon  his  long-cherished  scheme  of  leading  his  own  people 
to  the  Western  Empire  and  snatching  that  historic  land  from 
the  hands  of  Odoacer  and  his  Herulian  followers  who  had 
now  established  themselves  as  masters  in  Italy.  Theodoric 
asked  permission  of  Zeno  to  pass  with  his  entire  nation  into 
Italy  and,  having  wrested  it  from  Odoacer,  to  hold  the  coun- 
try for  the  Empire.  This  permission  was  most  joyfully 
granted  to  him  by  the  astute  ruler  of  the  East  who  was  only 
too  glad  to  be  rid  of  his  troublesome  "  son-in-arms,"  with- 


Affairs  in  I  tali/  37 

out  any  great  expense  unto  himself.  In  488  the  entire  Os- 
trogothic  nation,  now  numbering  some  200,000  souls,  set 
out  under  the  leadership  of  their  young  king  for  the  sunny 
and  historic  land  of  Italy.  Living  on  their  flocks  and  herds 
and  hunting  as  they  went,  they  marched  for  more  than  seven 
hundred  miles,  in  the  meantime  fighting  Avith  Bulgarians  and 
Sarmatians  who  had  swarmed  into  the  waste  marshes  of 
Hungary  and  Carniola,  once  populous,  cultivated,  and  full 
of  noble  cities,  and  engaging  in  a  desperate  battle  with  the 
Gepids  while  up  to  their  knees  in  a  morass.  Thus  threat- 
ened with  enemies  on  all  sides,  with  winter  approaching,  and 
starvation  staring  them  in  the  face,  unable  to  turn  back, 
they  pushed  on  through  the  passes  of  the  Julian  Alps,  where 
icicles  hung  upon  their  beards,  and  their  clothes  cracked  with 
frost.  Thus,  having  suffered  inconceivable  hardships,  with 
half  their  numbers  dead  through  warfare  and  the  hardships 
of  the  journey,  grim  and  gaunt,  they  poured  into  the  Vene- 
tian plain. 

It  is  now  necessary  to  turn  aside  for  a  moment  in  order 
that  we  may  become  acquainted  with  the  great  antagonists 
of  Theodoric  who  with  a  heterogeneous  force  of  Heruli,  Rugi, 
Tursilingi,  and  Italians  awaited  him.  In  475  the  last  of  the 
Caesars,  Augustus,  the  son  of  the  patrician  Orestes,  general 
of  the  Roman  army,  was  elevated  to  the  purple  by  the  turbu- 
lent soldiery  who  had  tried  in  vain  to  seat  his  father,  Orestes, 
upon  the  throne  of  the  Caesars.  They  had  perhaps  forced 
their  commander  but  a  short  time  previously  into  the  paths 
of  rebellion.  So  soon  as  they  had  completed  this  revolution- 
ary act,  they  demanded  the  confiscation  of  one-third  of  the 
lands  of  Italy,  this  portion  to  be  settled  upon  themselves  in 
the  same  manner  as  the  lands  of  Auvergne  had  been  bestowed 
upon  the  Visigoths.  This  Orestes  flatly  refused  to  do,  as 
he  deemed  himself  the  protector  of  the  Italian  people  and 
could  not  be  made  party  to  their  spoliation.  This  refusal 
was  fatal  to  himself,  to  his  son,  and  to  the  dynasty  of  the 
Caesars.  The  man  of  the  hour  had  arrived  in  the  person  of 
Odoacer,  son  of  Edicon,  a  minister  of  the  great  Attila,  and 
chief  of  the  Heruli,  one  of  the  minor  German  tribes,  at  this 
time  serving  as  an  officer  in  the  army  of  Orestes.     A  singu- 


38  The  History  of  Christianity 

lar  anecdote  is  related  of  his  youth.  Having  left  his  coun- 
try with  a  small  band  of  adventurers  who  were  seeking  serv- 
ice in  Italy,  he  one  day  passed  by  the  cell  of  St.  Severinus, 
a  bishop  of  much  piety  and  influence,  whose  history  forms  a 
long  and  interesting  episode  in  the  troubled  annals  of  the 
time.  Odoacer  entered  the  cell  of  this  pious  man  to  ask 
some  directions  or,  mayhap,  to  receive  the  old  man's  bless- 
ing. He  was  a  young  man  of  immense  proportions,  and  he 
was  compelled  to  bow  his  head,  and  even  to  remain  with  head 
and  shoulders  stooped  when  on  the  inside.  Regarding  him 
with  a  penetrating  glance,  the  saint  seemed  to  be  so  im- 
pressed with  his  formidable  and  kingly  appearance,  that  he 
declared  in  prophetic  words,  "  Go  to  Italy,  clad  in  thy  poor 
and  ragged  sheep  skins ;  thou  shalt  soon  give  greater  gifts 
to  thy  friends."  The  young  man  treasured  up  the  words 
of  the  pious  bishop  in  his  heart  and  remembered  them  at  the 
proper  moment.  His  martial  stature  and  soldier-like  ap- 
pearance soon  found  for  him  a  patron  in  the  person  of  his 
father's  colleague,  the  Pannonian  Orestes,  and  a  place  in 
the  body-guard  of  the  Emperor,  at  that  time  stationed  at 
Ravenna.  In  all  the  wars  of  the  time  Odoacer  distinguished 
himself  by  his  immense  physical  strength,  his  fearlessness, 
and  the  influence  which  such  a  character  enabled  him  to  ex- 
ercise over  his  fellow-soldiers.  At  this  crisis  in  the  affairs 
of  Orester,  Odoacer  found  himself  among  the  Rugi,  Scyri, 
and  Tursilingi,  German  tribes  closely  related  to  his  own. 
They  wei'e  the  men  to  whom  Orestes  owed  most  and  who 
were  now  dissatisfied  and  turbulent.  This  cunning  bidder 
for  fortune's  smiles  now  stepped  forward  and  promised  that 
if  they  would  but  follow  him  they  should  have  the  lands 
which  they  demanded  and  which  had  been  refused  them  by 
their  unworthy  leader.  The  standard  of  revolt  was  raised 
and  the  barbarian  mercenaries,  largely  recruited  by  their 
brothers  from  beyond  the  Alps,  advanced  against  their  former 
master.  The  struggle  was  a  brief  one.  Orestes  was  a  brave 
and  skillful  general,  but  he  was  totally  unable  to  contend 
against  the  odds  marshaled  against  him.  He  was  captured 
and  put  to  death  and  his  powerless  little  son,  who  by  his 
smallness  of  stature  and  beauty  of  person  appealed  to  Odo- 


Theodoric  Defeats  Odoacer  39 

acer,  was  dethroned,  given  a  pension  of  six  thousand  pieces 
of  gold,  and  sent  to  rusticate  in  a  Canipanian  village,  which 
received  its  name  from  the  spendthrift  Lucullus  and  had  pre- 
viously belonged  to  both  jNIarius  and  Sylla.  A  subservient 
senate  sent  word  to  Zeno  "  that  a  single  emperor  was  now 
sufficient  for  the  whole  of  both  Italy  and  Greece,  and  that 
the}^  felt  their  personal  safety  entirely  secure  under  the  ex- 
cellent protection  of  Odoacer."  Zeno  was  flattered  by  this 
empty  request  and  appointed  Odoacer  Patrician  and  general 
of  Italy  in  his  own  name.  Thus,  the  Empire  of  the  West 
finally  perished  and  a  barbarian  general  who  learned  the  art 
of  war  in  the  Roman  army  was  recognized  as  ruler.  It  may 
justly  be  said  of  him  that  he  cultivated  the  arts  of  peace 
and  by  a  wise  and  humane  policy  went  far  toward  the  estab- 
lishment of  prosperity  in  troubled  Italy.  He  kept  his  prom- 
ise to  his  soldiers  and  gave  them  one-third  of  the  lands  of 
northern  Italy,  thus  binding  them  firmly  to  his  support.  He 
entered  into  a  successful  treaty  with  the  victorious  Vandals 
in  Africa  and  the  Visigoths  in  Spain  and  Gaul. 

Odoacer  had  been  early  made  acquainted  with  the  contem- 
plated invasion  of  the  Ostrogoths  and  had  made  ready  his 
forces.  Thus  it  was  that  Theodoric  found  a  foeman  in  every 
way  worthy  of  his  steel.  And  on  that  Veronian  plain  which 
for  years  was  white  with  the  bones  of  the  slaughtered,  it 
was  German  that  met  German,  and  no  quarter  was  ever  asked 
or  granted.  It  was  only  by  reason  of  the  reckless  bravery 
of  Theodoric  and  the  fact  that  his  people  fought  not  for 
honor  but  for  life,  that  the  forces  of  Odoacer  were  finally 
defeated  and  that  general  was  compelled  to  shut  himself  up 
in  the  strongly  fortified  city  of  Ravenna.  Here  he  main- 
tained himself  for  more  than  three  years,  in  the  meantime 
carrying  on  a  devastating  war.  In  March,  493,  Ravenna 
finally  capitulated.  To  accomplish  this  Theodoric  entered 
into  a  treaty  with  Odoacer,  in  accordance  with  which  they 
were  to  rule  Italy  jointly,  perhaps  as  did  the  consuls  in  the 
days  of  the  Roman  Republic.  Be  this  as  it  may,  ten  days 
afterwards  at  a  banquet  given  by  Theodoric  in  honor  of  his 
colleague,  Odoacer,  the  latter  was  cut  down  by  Theodoric's 
own  hand,  and  so  by  an  act  of  cowardly  treachery,  which 


40  The  History  of  Christianity 

savors  of  the  Court  of  Constantinople  rather  than  of  the  free 
German  forests,  Theodoric  was  left  sole  ruler  of  the  Western 
Roman  Empire.  Italy,  Sicily,  Dalmatia,  and  the  lands  to 
the  north  of  the  Alps  owned  him  as  their  ruler.  In  this  war 
the  Ostrogoths  and  Visigoths  began  to  unite  and  Visigothic 
auxiliaries  fought  in  the  army  of  Theodoric  in  Italy.  When 
the  Visigothic  kingdom  of  Toulouse  was  overthrown  by  the 
Franks,  in  507,  the  power  of  Theodoric  was  extended  over 
a  large  portion  of  southern  Gaul  and  Spain.  When  Alaric 
II  died,  Theodoric,  his  father-in-law,  became  guardian  of 
his  grandson  Amalaric  and  preserved  for  him  all  his  Spanish 
dominions.  Thus,  so  long  as  Theodoric  lived  the  Visigothic 
kingdom  was  practically  united  to  his  own  dominion.  He 
was,  moreover,  overlord  of  all  the  Germanic  nations  of  Gaul 
and  Germany  except  the  Franks.  Neither  did  he  neglect 
the  ordinary  precautions  of  newly  established  monarchs,  but 
followed  a  policy  as  old  as  the  time  of  Solomon.  He 
strengthened  himself  on  all  sides  by  forming  or  consolidating 
connections  with  the  royal  houses  of  the  neighboring  na- 
tions. His  wife  was  a  sister  of  Clovis,  the  great  king  of 
the  Franks.  Of  his  daughters,  he  gave  one  in  marriage  to 
Alaric,  king  of  the  Visigoths,  another  to  Sigismund,  king  of 
the  Burgundians.  He  married  his  sister  to  a  son  of  Gaeseric 
the  Vandal,  and  his  niece  to  the  Thuringian  king.  Thus  the 
Ostrogothic  dominion  was  again  as  great  in  extent  and  far 
more  splendid  than  it  ever  was  in  the  time  of  Ermaneric. 
But  it  was  totally  different  in  character.  The  dominion  of 
Ermaneric  was  barbarian ;  that  of  Theodoric  was  civilized. 

For  three  and  thirty  years  from  the  fall  of  Ravenna  the 
murderer  of  Odoacer  gave  to  Italy  a  reign  of  wisdom,  jus- 
tice, and  prosperity  unexampled  in  the  liistory  of  the  centu- 
ries lying  between  the  days  of  the  Antonines  and  those  of 
Charlemagne.  Italy  now  for  the  first  time  was  occupied  by 
a  barbarian  nation,  and  not  by  a  mere  horde  of  hungry  war- 
riors, as  in  the  case  of  Odoacer  and  his  Herulian  followers. 
The  Ostrogothic  nation  had  a  history  behind  it  with  a  fixed 
political  system.  In  this  way  it  brings  out  as  never  before 
into  clear  relief  the  primal  differences  between  Roman  and 
Germanic   civil   policy.     It   is   here  in  the  field   of  politics 


Partition  of  the  Land  4*1 

where  the  true  greatness  of  Theodoric's  mind  is  displayed. 
His  great  physical  prowess  and  personal  bravery  were  the 
common  gifts  of  the  Germans,  and  were  held  in  even  greater 
degree  by  his  Amal  ancestors ;  his  skill  as  a  general  was  sur- 
passed by  his  noble  antagonist  whom  he  so  basely  slew;  but 
here  in  the  field  of  politics,  in  his  firm  grasp  of  affairs,  in 
true  statesmanlike  breadth  of  mind,  in  his  powers  of  con- 
struction rather  than  destruction,  he  was  unparalleled ;  and 
in  the  whole  field  of  modem  history,  until  we  reach  Napoleon, 
we  fail  to  find  his  equal,  "  Let  other  kings,"  said  he,  *'  re- 
joice in  ravaging  cities  and  burdening  themselves  with  huge 
spoils,  but  I  wish  my  dominion  to  be  such  that  vanquished 
nations  shall  only  regret  that  they  were  not  sooner  made 
subject  to  it."  But  these  Ostrogoths  needed  lands,  and  as 
each  Italian  city,  especially  in  the  north,  had  given  up  a 
third  part  of  its  territor3'  to  be  distributed  to  the  soldiers 
of  Odoacer,  and  as  this  land  was  now  left  vacant  by  the 
destruction  of  its  occupiers,  the  new-comers  were  provided 
for  without  further  discommoding  the  Romans.  But,  al- 
though the  Goths  were  thus  made  owners  of  a  large  portion 
of  Italic  soil,  spoliation  and  oppression  were  entirely  forbid- 
den and  the  rights  of  property  of  the  Roman  population 
were  recognized  and  fully  enforced.  The  villas  whicli  had 
been  deserted  by  their  owners  were  now  again  occupied  and 
the  lazy,  luxurious  life  of  the  Roman  dilettante  went  unin- 
terruptedly on.  While  sojourning  at  the  Imperial  Court, 
Theodoric  had  discovered  the  true  secret  of  Roman  power 
which  made  the  empire  terrible  even  in  her  fallen  fortunes ; 
that  was  Law.  Indeed,  it  is  in  Roman  law  where  we  dis- 
cover all  the  elements  of  her  iron  strength ;  that  which  placed 
her  preeminently  above  all  the  nations  of  antiquity ;  law, 
which  tells  every  man  what  to  expect  and  what  is  expected 
of  him ;  and  in  this  way  gives,  if  not  content,  at  least  con- 
fidence, energy,  and  industry.  Theodoric's  was  a  two-fold 
position.  He  was  national  king  of  the  Goths,  and  at  the 
same  time  he  was  successor  to  the  Roman  Emperors  of  the 
West.  In  his  capacity  of  ruler  of  his  own  people,  he  was 
now  called  upon,  probabh'  for  the  first  time  in  their  history, 
to  administer  and  enforce  among  the  Goths  the  laws  of  indi- 


42  The  History  of  Christianity 

vidual  property  in  land.  More  than  this,  he  suppressed 
Gothic  institutions  centuries  old  which  were  opposed  to  the 
common  weal  in  the  new  order  of  settled  life.  An  example 
of  this  was  the  establishment  of  a  new  criminal  code  and  the 
abolition  of  the  old-time  wergild.  Two  peoples,  whose  po- 
litical ideals  were  radically  opposed,  now  dwelt  side  by  side 
and  had  one  common  ruler.  Of  these  two  peoples,  the  one 
was  at  least  semi-barbarian,  holding  as  a  blood  gift  a  rude 
but  proper  idea  of  justice  and  morality,  and  an  altogether 
exaggerated  love  for  personal  freedom;  the  other,  none  of 
these,  but  law,  the  suppression  of  the  individual  and  the  ele- 
vation of  the  state,  art,  literature,  commerce,  agriculture, 
in  fact  all  the  physical  and  refining  elements  of  a  high  but 
narrow  civilization;  the  one  with  its  barbaric  instincts  still 
vigorous  had  but  recently  adopted  Arian  Christianity;  the 
other,  with  mixed  blood  and  all  the  currents  of  native  forces 
long  since  exhausted,  had  for  centuries  been  clothed  in  the 
outward  trappings  of  a  trenchant  orthodoxy  without  any 
of  the  spirit  of  Christ.  I  said  one  man  ruled  over  these 
two  antithetical  nations.  He  had  in  a  very  high  degree,  as 
part  of  his  bone  and  blood,  all  the  national  characteristics 
of  the  former;  he  had,  as  well,  a  very  thin  veneering  of  the 
showy  parts  of  the  latter,  together  with  a  reverence  for 
Roman  civilization  and  an  abiding  faith  in  the  spirit  of 
Roman  law.  This  man  Theodoric  had,  moreover,  such  a 
fund  of  common  sense  that  he  was  able  to  formulate  a  code 
of  laws  which  worked  justice  to  both  parties.  The  Goth  was 
allowed  such  of  his  customs  as  were  deemed  not  out  of  har- 
mony with  his  present  state  or  future  welfare,  but  he  for 
the  first  time,  probably,  submitted  to  a  tax,  as  Theodoric 
made  no  distinction  between  Goth  and  Roman  in  this  respect. 
Upon  Roman  civilization  was  engrafted  an  order,  a  justice, 
a  freedom,  and  a  morality,  which  were  the  Gothic  contribu- 
tion and  which  tended  at  least  to  the  strengthening  and  up- 
building of  the  effete  Roman  provincial.  The  free  Germanic 
assemblies  were  still  continued  to  the  Goths,  and  by  their 
side  there  yet  lived  that  proud  but  long  since  ridiculous 
Roman  Senate ;  while  over  both  the  king  held  a  firm  hand 
and  himself  did  all  the  governing.     He  placed  the  treasures 


Results  of  Theodoric's  Rule  43 

of  Roman  art  under  the  care  of  the  government  officials.     He 
rebuilt  or  founded  baths,  palaces,  churches,  aqueducts,  to 
such  an  extent  that  the  Gothic  name  has  been  given  to  a 
style   of  architecture.     Rural   industry  was   sedulously  en- 
couraged  and   agriculture   thrived   throughout   Italy.     The 
Pontine  Marshes  were  drained,  the  imperial  ports  restored, 
and  new  cities  everywhere  sprang  up.     It  is  to  this  era  that 
we  owe  the  origin  or  revival  of  many  among  the  renowned 
cities  of  mediaeval  times.      Then  arose  Venice,  Ferrara,  Aqui- 
leia,  Chiusa,  and  Sienna,  while  Florence,  Pisa,  Genoa,  Bo- 
logne,  and  Milan  first  gathered  within  their  walls  the  mass 
of  wealth  and  the  treasures  of  beauty  which  will  render  them 
illustrious  through  all  generations  of  time.     Few  indeed,  if 
any,  of  these  towns  were  actually  founded  by  Goths.     They 
were  perhaps  in  every  case  founded  by  Greek  or  Roman  fugi- 
tives.    But  it  was  the  security  and  liberality  of  the  reign 
of  Theodoric  which  made  their  existence  possible.     Venice 
was   indeed   more  indebted   to   this   barbarian  hero   for  her 
prosperity    than    to    the    fabled    patronage    of    St.    Mark. 
Again,   the   administration   of   the  government  was   so  eco- 
nomically carried  on  that  in  spite  of  the  great  expenditures 
for  rebuilding  ruined  cities  and  demolished  fortifications,  the 
taxes  were  very  considerably  lessened.     An  active  police  by 
sea  and  land  maintained  the  security  of  trade  and  property 
while  life  was  protected  as  it  had  not  been  since  the  time  of 
the  Antonines.     Theodoric  was   a  conscientious  Arian,  but 
he  was  broad  enough  to  see  the  political  advantages  of  tol- 
eration.     He  was  on  terms  of  friendship  with  the  pope  and 
showed  no  violence  to  the  Orthodox  party.     Any  of  his  sub- 
jects,  whether   Goth   or   Italian,   were  permitted   to   adopt 
either   form  of  faith.     He  granted  equal  privileges  to  the 
clergy  of  both  communions  and  allowed  religious  liberty  to 
the  despised  Jew.     "  We  can  not  enforce  religion,"  said  he, 
"  for  no  one  is  obliged  to  believe  anything  in  spite  of  him- 
self."    He  built  many  churches  but  he  tore  down  none. 

Thus,  a  barbarian  gave  back  to  Italy  the  prosperity  which 
she  had  lost  under  the  Emperors.  Says  INIachiavelli,  "  Theo- 
doric deserves  the  highest  praise,  for,  during  the  thirty- 
eight  years  he  reigned  in  Italy,  he  brought  the  country  to 


44  The  History  of  Christianity 

such  a  state  of  greatness  that  her  previous  sufferings  were 
unrecognizable."  We  find  here  the  birth  hour  of  modern 
Italy.  Modern  European  civilization  would  have  been  ad- 
vanced five  centuries  had  his  work  been  allowed  to  stand  and 
had  after  generations  given  their  attention  to  adding  to 
rather  than  tearing  down  the  constructive  work  of  this  great 
man. 

The  results  of  Theodoric's  administration  were  a  gradual 
amalgamation  of  race  and  interest  between  the  conquerors 
and  the  conquered,  the  general  security  and  rapid  increase 
of  property  throughout  the  peninsula,  and  the  appearance 
of  all  those  outward  adornments  which  arise  from  and  dis- 
tinguish a  period  of  national  prosperity. 

The  last  few  years  of  Theodoric's  life  were  rendered  un- 
happy by  a  religious  ferment  which  had  its  origin  in  the 
Eastern  Empire.  Justin  I  proscribed  Arianism  in  his  do- 
minions and  punished  severely  all  who  confessed  this  con- 
faith.  Theodoric  was  in  no  way  a  bigoted  Arian,  but  he 
looked  upon  this  proscription  as  an  indignity  and  attempted 
by  negotiations  to  mitigate  its  severity.  As  a  last  resort 
he  sent  word  to  Justin  that  in  case  the  persecution  of  Arians 
did  not  cease  he  would  retaliate  by  a  persecution  of  the  Or- 
thodox in  his  own  realm.  This  had  the  desired  effect  but 
aroused  the  fears  of  his  subjects,  some  of  whom  entered  into 
a  conspiracy  against  his  life.  Among  the  number  arrested 
and  charged  with  this  crime  were  the  Patriarch  of  Rome, 
Symmachus,  a  trusted  counsellor,  and  the  philosopher  Bo- 
ethius.  These  were  convicted  and  put  to  death  in  524. 
Wliile  in  prison  awaiting  his  execution,  Boethius  wrote  his 
celebrated  work.  The  Consolation  of  Philosophy.  It  is  alto- 
gether probable  that  remorse  for  the  execution  of  the  philos- 
opher and  his  father-in-law,  Symmachus,  whose  innocence 
was  afterwards  made  clear  to  him,  unseated  the  mind  of 
Theodoric  and  hastened  his  death,  which  took  place  in  526, 
in  his  seventy-third  year. 

After  Theodoric's  death,  the  supremacy  wielded  by  his 
nation  over  the  barbarian  world  disappeared.  The  union 
between  Ostrogoths  and  Visigoths  came  to  an  end.  The 
Ostrogoths  made  Athalaric,  the  grandson  of  Theodoric,  by 


Revival  of  Roman  Power  4«5 

his  daughter  Amalasuntha,  their  king,  while  the  Visigoths 
raised  Amalaric,  the  son  of  that  Alaric  who  fell  in  conflict 
with  Clovis  in  507,  to  the  throne,  and  henceforth  that  king- 
dom won  its  way  to  independent  renown.  Athalaric  was  but 
a  sickly  child  when  he  came  to  the  throne  and  his  mother,  as 
guardian,  was  associated  with  him  in  the  rule.  The  ambi- 
tious rivalries  among  the  nobles  now  destroyed  the  last  ves- 
tige of  union,  while  the  Court  at  Constantinople  continually 
intrigued  to  fan  these  dissensions  into  flame.  Ostrogothic 
power  rapidly  fell  to  pieces  during  this  reign.  In  534,  the 
boy-king  died  after  a  brief  life  of  self-indulgence  and  idle- 
ness. His  mother  undertook  the  government  alone,  but  later 
associated  her  nephew  Theodohad  with  her  in  the  sov- 
ereignty. This  proved  to  be  a  very  unfortunate  arrange- 
ment, as  the  nephew  immediately  intrigued  to  obtain  the  sole 
rule  and  finally  accomplished  his  purpose  by  assassination. 
Frightful  anarchy  ensued  in  which  rapine  and  murder  were 
daily  occurrences. 

In  the  meantime  Justinian  had  become  Emperor  of  the 
East  and  had  revived  for  a  time  the  name  and  fortune  of 
Rome.  A  transitory  gleam  of  splendor  flashed  across  the 
destiny  of  the  fallen  empire.  Again  were  the  imperial  eagles 
borne  to  victory.  Belisarius,  the  renowned  general  of  Jus- 
tinian, in  one  rapid  and  brilliant  campaign  overran  the  whole 
Vandal  territory  and  crushed  that  kingdom  forever.  The 
weakness  and  anarchy  existing  in  the  Ostrogothic  kingdom 
now  fired  Justinian  with  the  ambition  of  extending  his  do- 
minion over  the  Empire  of  the  West.  For  this  purpose  he 
sent  Behsarius  and  his  victorious  army  into  Italy.  And 
now  begins  that  terrible  Gothic  war  which  was  to  leave  Italy 
once  more  a  heap  of  ruins  and  which  was  to  tax  the  strength 
and  skill  of  both  those  famous  generals,  Belisarius  and 
Narses.  Finally,  in  552,  after  nearly  twenty  years  of  the 
most  desperate  conflict  in  all  the  annals  of  war  and  after 
their  heroic  kings  had  fallen  as  became  them  sword  in  hand 
on  the  field  of  battle,  the  Goth  was  almost  annihilated  and 
another  splendid  Germanic  kingdom  came  to  an  end.  More 
than  this,  a  powerful  people  disappeared  from  the  world's 
history.     Says  Sheppard,  "  A  great  people,  which  had  or- 


46  The  History  of  Christianity 

ganized  an  enlightened  government,  and  sent  200,000  fight- 
ing men  into  the  field  of  battle,  is  annihilated  and  forgotten. 
A  wretched  remnant,  transported  by  Narses  to  Constanti- 
nople, were  soon  absorbed  in  the  miserable  proletariat  of  a 
metropolitan  city.  The  rest  fell  by  the  sword,  or  were 
gradually  amalgamated  with  the  mixed  population  of  the 
peninsula."  ..."  They  disappeared,  those  brave  Teutons, 
out  of  whom,  welded  with  the  Latin  race,  son  noble  a  people 
might  have  been  made  to  cultivate  and  defend  the  Italian 
peninsula.  They  were  swallowed  up  in  we  know  not  what  mo- 
rass of  Gepid,  of  Herulian,  of  Slavonic  barbarism."  This 
kingdom,  judged  by  almost  any  standard,  was  worthy  of  life 
more  by  far  than  some  that  have  outlived  it  one  thousand 
years.  It  was  rent,  however,  by  terrible  religious  strife  and 
"  A  kingdom  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand." 

At  the  close  of  the  long  and  bloody  war  with  the  Goths 
when  life  had  again  settled  down  to  its  accustomed  burden- 
bearing,  the  Greek  and  Roman  population  which  had  been 
fostered  by  Theodoric  and  whose  battles  had  been  fought  by 
his  followers,  but  who  were  still  far  from  being  satisfied, 
now,  at  last,  when  it  was  forever  too  late,  realized  that  the 
smile  of  Providence  had  been  upon  them.  After  the  fall  of 
the  Goth,  the  conqueror  Narses  was  made  governor  of  Italy 
with  the  title  of  Exarch,  and  with  his  residence  at  Ravenna. 
He  proceeded  in  the  name  of  his  master,  Justinian,  to  crush 
the  life  out  of  the  people  by  a  taxation  nothing  short  of 
robbery;  this,  on  the  ground  that  the  expenses  of  the  terri- 
ble war  had  been  incurred  in  their  behalf,  and  it  was  only 
justice  that  they  should  pay  them.  In  565,  after  the  death 
of  Justinian,  the  discontent  of  the  people  rose  to  an  alarm- 
ing height  and  it  was  thought  best  to  recall  Narses.  A 
thoughtless  and  silly  woman  turned  this  recall  into  an  insult 
which  it  was  not  in  human  nature  to  forgive.  "  Bid  him 
leave  to  men  the  exercise  of  arms,  and  resume  his  proper 
place,  distaff  in  hand,  among  the  women  of  the  palace,"  was 
the  message  sent  to  Narses  by  the  empress.  We  wonder  not 
at  the  answer,  "  Tell  her  I  will  spin  her  such  a  thread  as  she 
shall  not  easily  unravel."  Thereupon  he  sent  word  to  the 
Lombards  then  dwelling  in  Pannonia,  that  if  they  chose  to 


The  Lombards  47 

come  across  the  Alps  into  Italy,  he  would  not  stand  in  their 
way.  This  invitation  was  readily  accepted  and  the  nation 
took  up  its  march  and  overran  the  valley  of  the  Po,  After 
a  siege  of  three  years  the  great  city  of  Pavia  at  last  sur- 
rendered and  became  the  capital  of  the  Lombard  kingdom, 
as  Ravenna  had  been  that  of  the  Gothic,  some  seventy-five 
years  before.  Italy  was  easily  subdued  this  time  as  the  war 
with  the  Goths  had  exhausted  her  resources.  All  the  central, 
inland  portion  of  Italy  quickly  fell  into  the  hands  of  the 
Lombards,  while  the  seacoast  generally  remained  to  the  Ro- 
mans. The  Exarchate  of  Ravenna,  Rome,  the  coast  of  Li- 
guria  and  Venice,  together  with  all  the  southern  part  of  the 
peninsula  and  the  islands,  were  never  conquered  by  the  Lom- 
bards. The  Greek  Empire  retained  all  these,  and  they  were 
governed  by  an  exarch  who  lived,  as  Narses  had  done,  at 
Ravenna. 

These  new  conquerors  of  Italy  were  Germans  like  the 
Goths  before  them,  and  so  continued  the  common  Germanic 
institutions  which  had  been  planted  by  Theodoric.  But  the 
Lombards,  though  Germans,  were  little  like  the  Goths  in 
other  respects ;  they  seemed  to  be  coarser  grained  and  hence 
more  brutal,  more  like  the  Saxons  to  whom  they  were  nearly 
related.  Their  own  legends  represent  the  tribe  as  coming 
from  Scandinavia  and  settling  upon  the  shores  of  the  Baltic 
Sea  where  they  are  located  by  the  Romans  in  the  second  cen- 
tury, in  close  proximity  to  the  Saxons,  but  on  the  left  bank 
of  the  Elbe.  In  the  latter  part  of  the  sixth  century  they 
are  found  dwelling  on  the  banks  of  the  Danube,  already  more 
than  half  Christianized.  How  they  reached  this  territory 
and  by  whom  Christianity  was  introduced  among  them,  we 
know  little.  They  were  Arians  like  their  neighbors,  and  like 
the  Goths  carried  with  them  into  Italy  a  hierarchy  of  priests, 
bishops,  and  deacons.  Here  on  the  banks  of  the  Danube 
they  repeated  the  history  of  the  Goths.  For  a  time  they 
were  on  good  terms  with  the  empire  and  furnished  soldiers 
for  many  campaigns.  They  overthrew  the  Heruli,  to  whom 
they  were  subject  for  a  time,  and  then  utterly  destroyed  the 
Gepidae  who  had  settled  in  Attila's  old  home  after  his 
death.     Moving  gradually  westward,  they  finalh'  took  pes- 


48  The  History  of  Christianity 

session  of  Pannonia  where  for  some  forty  years  prior  to 
their  passage  of  the  Julian  Alps  they  made  their  home.  In 
the  history  of  the  Vandals  and  the  Ostrogoths  we  found  that 
in  each  case  one  man  formed  a  center  and  Vandal  and  Ostro- 
gothic  history  became  little  more  than  biography.  There 
was  nothing  of  tliis  in  the  case  of  the  Lombards.  Alboin, 
who  was  their  king  when  they  passed  into  Italy,  was  distin- 
guished from  his  fellow-countrymen  only  by  an  excess  of  bru- 
tality. Only  two  acts  of  his  are  recorded  by  the  national 
historian  Paul.  When  in  battle  with  the  Gepidae  he  slew 
their  king,  Cunimund,  with  his  own  hand  and  forced  Rosa- 
mond, his  beautiful  daughter,  to  marry  him.  This  was  bar- 
barism only;  Theodoric  would  have  done  as  much.  He  had 
a  silver-mounted  drinking-cup  made  out  of  the  old  king's 
skull,  from  which  on  festal  occasions  he  and  his  warriors 
quaffed  large  draughts  of  wine  in  celebration  of  their  feats 
of  arms,  even  as  Odin's  warriors  were  wont  to  do  in  the 
heavenly  banqueting  hall.  On  one  occasion  he  bade  his  at- 
tendants fill  with  wine  the  skull  of  Cunimund  and  bear  the 
cup  to  his  own  wife,  the  daughter  of  the  slain  king,  the  lovely 
Lombard  queen,  compelling  her  to  drink  therefrom.  This 
was  sheer  brutality.  The  Goth  was  barbarous,  but  with  the 
instincts  of  a  gentleman ;  the  Lombard  was  barbarous,  with 
the  instincts  of  a  cruel  beast.  Alboin  was  soon  assassinated 
at  the  instigation  of  his  outraged  wife  and  was  followed  by 
Clef,  a  man  fully  as  cruel  as  his  predecessor.  He  very  soon 
became  intolerable  to  a  proud  nobility,  who  deemed  them- 
selves the  equals  of  their  monarch  on  the  field  of  battle,  and 
scarcely  his  inferior  in  birth  or  social  rank,  and  was  mur- 
dered at  their  instigation.  Throughout  their  whole  history 
as  an  independent  nation  the  Lombards  produced  no  great 
man  and,  instead  of  being  weakened  thereby,  it  was  undoubt- 
edly the  main  cause  of  their  becoming  attached  to  Italian 
soil  and  making  a  large  factor  in  the  subsequent  history  of 
Italy.  The  Lombard  chiefs  were  a  turbulent  set  and  had 
not  respect  enough  for  their  king  to  sink  their  own  individu- 
ality in  his,  nor  did  that  king  have  power  enough  to  crush 
them.  We  find  the  nation,  therefore,  almost  immediately 
upon  their  arrival  in  Italy  divided  into  thirty-six  dukedoms 


Autharis  Institutes  Feudal  Customs  49 

or  counties,  each  one  under  a  ruler  who  was  practically  inde- 
pendent and  who  thus  became  personally  attached  to  the  soil, 
and  as  owner  interested  in  its  welfare.  The  Germanic  na- 
tional assembly,  which  lost  all  its  power  in  the  hands  of  Theo- 
doric,  here  kept  its  full  force  and  made  the  king  subject  to 
its  decisions.  Thus  the  people  kept  up  a  healthful  interest 
in  politics  while  at  the  same  time  they  rapidly  became  at- 
tached to  the  soil.  After  the  death  of  Clef,  they  elected  no 
successor  for  a  space  of  ten  years,  but  formed  rather  a  loose 
confederacy,  each  duke  being  for  the  time  entirely  inde- 
pendent and  making  war  on  his  own  account  either  upon  the 
subject  population  which  he  robbed,  or  upon  some  neighbor- 
ing Lombard  duke.  Thus  we  have  repeated  on  Italic  soil  a 
picture  of  earlier  Germanic  customs,  complete  in  all  particu- 
lars save  that  of  private  landholding.  This  element  was 
new. 

But  this  loose  confederacy  was  not  the  thing  to  protect 
the  Lombard  from  the  dread  of  Byzantine  intrigue,  Frank 
intervention,  or  the  jealous  interference  of  the  Roman  pon- 
tiff. The  political  perceptions  of  the  various  dukes  were 
quickened  by  these  dangers  and  the  knowledge  gradually  fil- 
tered in,  that  disunion  was  death.  After  an  interval  of  ten 
riotous  years,  in  584,  they  re-established  the  office  of  king 
and  elected  thereto  Autharis,  the  son  of  Clef,  who  was  a 
minor  at  the  time  of  his  father's  death.  In  engaging  to 
follow  his  banner  to  the  war,  they  agreed  to  a  surrender  of 
one-half  of  their  annual  revenue  for  the  purpose  of  furnish- 
ing a  body  of  troops  which  would  be  at  the  king's  disposal 
at  all  times.  This  supplied  the  nucleus  of  a  standing  army 
and  greatly  strengthened  the  central  power.  In  return  for 
this  concession  on  the  part  of  the  nobility  the  king  made  the 
various  holdings  of  the  dukes  independent  and  hereditary, 
revertible  to  the  crown  only  upon  the  failure  of  heirs. 
Thus,  we  see  the  seeds  of  feudalism  sown  throughout  Italy. 
The  vanquished  population  sunk  to  the  condition  of  tributa- 
ries and  were  obliged  to  pay  to  their  conquerors  one-third  of 
the  products  of  the  fields  which  they  retained.  Their  con- 
dition was  much  inferior  to  what  it  was  during  the  Ostro- 
gothic    dominance.     Autharis    was    active    during   his    brief 


50  The  History  of  Christianity 

reign  in  establishing  peace  and  security,  and  strengthening 
the  central  government  against  the  outside  enemies.  But  he 
really  made  little  headway  in  curbing  the  restless  and  inde- 
pendent spirits  of  his  Lombard  nobility,  who  had  the  con- 
trolling power  in  the  national  assembly,  and  so  made  the 
laws  which  they  afterwards  administered  among  their  neigh- 
bors and  dependents  to  suit  themselves.  The  Lombards  were 
Arians,  and  continued  for  some  time  to  hold  faithfully  to 
this  confession,  but  Autharis  had  married  an  orthodox  prin- 
cess, Theodolinda,  who  by  her  beauty  and  lovable  character 
had  unbounded  influence,  not  only  over  her  husband,  but  also 
over  the  Lombard  chiefs.  When  Autharis  died  while  yet  a 
j'^oung  man,  his  youthful  widow  was  allowed  to  choose  a  sec- 
ond husband  whom  the  nobility  swore  to  make  their  king. 
Her  choice  fell  upon  Agilulf,  duke  of  Turin.  Through  his 
wife's  influence  this  new  king  accepted  the  orthodox  faith  and 
the  whole  nation  was  gradually  won  over  from  their  Arianism 
to  orthodoxy.  How  much  of  this  conversion  was  a  mere 
matter  of  policy,  it  is  impossible  to  say.  Rotharis,  who  suc- 
ceeded to  the  throne  in  615,  upon  the  death  of  Agilulf,  was 
thoroughly  Orthodox.  He  had  the  distinction  of  giving  to 
the  Lombards  their  first  written  laws  which  Avere  but  a  care- 
ful compilation  of  customary  law.  In  a  Diet,  held  in  Pavia 
in  643,  the  king  made  this  written  code  known  by  proclama- 
tion and  further  said,  "  They  are  the  laws  of  our  fathers,  as 
far  as  we  have  learned  them  from  ancient  men,  and  are  pub- 
lished with  the  counsel  and  consent  of  our  princes,  judges, 
and  all  our  most  prosperous  army,  and  are  confirmed  ac- 
cording to  the  custom  of  our  nation  by  garathinx,"  i.  e.,  by 
giving  an  earnest,  or  warrant,  of  the  bargain.  These  Lom- 
bard laws  were  simply  a  compact  between  king  and  people 
and  were  in  this  respect  like  all  early  English  laws  save  that 
they  were  territorial  rather  than  personal,  and  bound  Lom- 
bard and  Roman  alike.  They  were  written  in  Latin  and  in 
this  way  became  a  notice  to  the  Roman  of  the  usages  and 
rules  of  their  conquerors.  The  Roman  must  have  felt  some 
contempt  for  so  rude  a  legal  code,  after  having  followed  for 
so  long  the  guidance  of  that  consummate  jurisprudence 
which   Justinian  had   codified.     Perhaps   the  Lombard  was 


Growing  Strength  of  the  Papacy  51 

justified  in  thinking  that  laws  which  were  good  enough  for 
him  were  also  good  enough  for  persons  whom  he  could  con- 
quer. The  kingdom  of  the  Lombards  lasted  for  more  than 
two  hundred  years,  from  Alboin  (568)  to  the  fall  of  Desi- 
derius  (774*),  but  it  differed  from  the  other  Germanic  con- 
quests whose  history  we  have  traced  in  that  it  was  never  com- 
plete as  to  territory.  Throughout  this  entire  time  there 
were  three  capitals :  the  Lombard  one,  Pavia ;  the  Latin  one, 
Rome,  and  the  Greek  one,  Ravenna,  Luitprand,  the  only 
king  after  Rotharis  worthy  of  mention,  tried  to  complete 
the  conquest  of  the  peninsula,  but  failed  to  gain  access  to 
the  sea  and  at  the  same  time  stirred  up  an  enemy  destined  to 
become  more  powerful  than  any  barbarian  leader  that  ever 
unfurled  his  banner  on  the  soil  of  Italy.  Through  the  in- 
fluence of  Leo,  who  was  able  to  turn  back  the  conquering 
hordes  of  Attila,  and  Gregory  the  Great,  who  now  took  ad- 
vantage of  every  favorable  opportunity  to  push  forward  the 
claims  of  St.  Peter,  the  Roman  Church  began  to  show  that 
energy  and  aggressiveness  which  was  destined  to  make  it  the 
triumphant  power  in  Europe.  It  was  this  that  forced  Luit- 
prand to  withhold  his  hand  when  at  the  very  gates  of  the 
"  Eternal  City,"  and  to  prostrate  himself  before  the  pontiff's 
chair.  It  was  the  church  that  summoned  the  Frank  to  her 
aid  in  her  struggle  with  the  Lombard  which  marks  the  be- 
ginning of  the  end  of  Lombard  rule  in  Italy. 

During  the  two-hundred  years  of  their  sojourn  in  Italy 
a  change  had  come  over  the  Lombard  character.  "  Intestine 
seditions,  and  the  enervating  influence  of  a  warmer  climate, 
had  deteriorated  the  rude  energies  of  that  race  whom  Taci- 
tus distinguishes  for  valor  and  hardihood  amid  their  Teu- 
tonic brethren,  and  who,  two  hundred  years  before,  de- 
scended under  the  banners  of  Alboin,  like  sons  of  the  giants, 
upon  the  fair  cities  and  fertile  plains  of  Italy,  determined  to 
make  them  the  booty  of  their  bow  and  spear.  But  now  they 
could  offer  no  effectual  resistance  to  men  who  brought  with 
them  from  behind  the  mountains  a  fresher  importation  of 
the  same  old  heroic  blood."  In  the  north  of  Italy  the  influ- 
ence of  the  Lombard  was  profound,  while  in  turn  the  influ- 
ence of  the  Itahan,  by  daily  contact,  completely  transformed 


52  The  History  of  Christianity 

his  conqueror.  However,  the  races  never  overcame  their 
mutual  antipathy  and  never  amalgamated  until  the  Frankish 
conquest  made  them  both  subject.  The  influence  of  this  Ger- 
manic strain  is  plainly  discernible  to-day  in  the  physical 
characteristics  of  the  dwellers  in  the  valley  of  the  Po  and 
throughout  the  inland  and  northern  portions  of  the  Italian 
peninsula. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

THE    FRANKS    FROM    CLOVIS    TO    CHARLEMAGNE 

IN  our  rapid  sketching  of  the  main  Germanic  tribes  that 
left  the  fatherland  for  new  homes  in  the  south  or  the  west, 
we  have  now  reached  the  Franks,  who  in  some  respects  at  least 
must  be  considered  the  most  important  of  all.  When  their 
history  begins,  the  Franks  appear  in  two  great  sub- 
confederacies  or  groups,  mostly  on  the  west  bank  of  the 
Rhine,  from  the  neighborhood  of  Mainz  northward  and  west- 
ward to  the  sea,  but  reaching  also  east  of  the  Rhine  to  the 
Yssel.  In  the  middle  of  the  third  century  they  had  spread 
themselves  over  the  greater  part  of  northern  Gaul  and  were 
known  by  the  names  of  Ripuarii,  occupying  the  country  be- 
tween the  Rhine  and  the  Meuse,  and  the  Salii,  upon  either 
side  of  the  Rhine,  eastward  to  the  Yssel  and  westward  to  the 
Scheldt,  The  Ripuarii,  in  all  probability,  derived  their 
name  from  the  fact  of  their  dwelling  upon  the  banks  of  the 
Rhine  and  Meuse,  while  the  Salii  were  doubtless  named  from 
the  Yssel,  the  most  northern  of  the  branches  by  which  the 
Rhine  flows  westward  into  the  GeiTnan  ocean.  At  the  time 
of  Attila's  invasion,  in  451,  the  Franks  are  firmly  established, 
the  Salii,  with  their  capital  at  Dispargum,  and  the  Ripuarii, 
"with  their  capital  at  Cologne,  while  they  unite  in  friendly 
intercourse  with  the  empire  and  are  frequently  found  fighting 
in  the  ranks  of  the  Roman  armj^  just  as  Goths,  Vandals, 
Heruli,  Lombards,  and  even  Huns,  had  done  before  them. 
They  were  pretty  generally  allied  with  the  Romans  and  Visi- 
goths against  the  Huns  in  the  great  battle  of  Chalons,  in 
451,  although  they  were  also  found  in  the  ranks  of  the  mixed 
host  of  Attila.  Of  the  two  great  families,  the  Salii  early 
developed  the  greater  strength.  This  was  apparent  early 
during  the  leadership  of  their  young  chieftain  Clovis  (Hlod- 

"wig,   Ludovicus,   or  Louis)    when   they  became  masters   of 

53 


54  The  History  of  Christianity 

northern  Gaul,  while  the  Ripuarii  were  still  hemmed  in  be- 
tween the  Meuse  and  the  Rhine.  Clovis  began  to  rule  the 
Salian  Franks  in  481,  when  but  fifteen  years  of  age.  He 
succeeded  to  his  father,  Childeric,  who  was  the  hero  of  many 
a  strange  Frankish  saga  and  who  had,  twenty-four  years 
earlier,  followed  his  father,  Merovich,  who  was  fabled  to 
have  sprung  from  a  semi-god,  or  sea-monster,  thus  furnish- 
ing to  his  descendants  the  proper  god-like  ancestry.  It  is 
from  this  grandfather  of  Clovis  that  the  well-known  name  of 
Merovings  was  derived.  This  story  well  illustrates  the 
youth  of  the  heathen  nation  which  this  young  ruler  was  des- 
tined to  lead  to  victory  and  greatness.  It  was  still  lingering 
in  the  dim  mists  of  mythology. 

Under  Clovis  the  Franks  may  be  said  to  begin  their  long 
career  of  conquest,  by  overthrowing,  in  486,  the  Roman 
power  which  was  at  that  time  marshalled  under  the  command 
of  Syagrius,  in  the  battle  of  Soissons.  By  this  battle  they 
extended  their  boundary  to  the  river  Loire,  which  at  that 
time  marked  the  northern  limit  of  the  Visigothic  kingdom, 
and  snatched  from  the  palsied  hand  of  Rome  the  last  of  her 
possessions  north  of  the  Alps  and  west  of  the  Rhine.  In  this 
manner  all  Gaul,  that  had  been  won  by  the  statesmanship 
and  genius  of  Julius  Caesar  with  so  much  toil  and  bloodshed 
nearly  five  hundred  years  before,  now  fell  under  the  domi- 
nance of  Germanic  peoples,  the  Franks,  Burgundians,  and 
Visigoths.  Five  centuries  of  Roman  dominance  and  Roman 
civilization  thus  came  to  an  ignoble  end.  It  was  here  in  this 
battle  with  Syagrius  at  Soissons  that  occurred  the  incident 
of  the  vase  which  is  related  by  Gregory  of  Tours,  and  which 
admirably  illustrates  the  nature  of  Clovis.  At  the  request 
of  a  bishop,  Clovis  had  desired  to  reserve,  over  and  above 
his  own  share  of  the  booty,  a  valuable  vase  which  was  part  of 
the  sack  of  a  church.  All  the  soldiers  save  one  gave  their 
willing  consent  to  this  request,  but  he,  raising  his  battle  axe, 
struck  the  vase  a  blow,  at  the  same  time  crying  out :  "  Thou 
shalt  only  have  what  the  lot  accords  thee."  The  king  seem- 
ingly paid  no  heed  to  this  affront  but  took  the  battered  vase 
and  restored  it  to  the  church.  At  the  review  of  his  army 
which  took  place  the  following  year,  when  he  came  to  him 


Clovis  Marries  Clotilda  55 

who  had  struck  the  vase,  Clovis  reproved  him  for  the  ill  con- 
dition of  his  weapons  and,  instead  of  restoring  them  to  the 
owner,  flung  them  upon  the  ground.  When  the  latter 
stooped  to  recover  them,  Clovis  clove  his  skull  in  twain  with 
a  double-handed  blow  of  his  battle-axe,  exclaiming  as  he  did 
so:  "Thus  didst  thou  with  the  vase  at  Soissons."  That 
crafty,  cruel  cunning  which  could  patiently  wait  a  year  for 
its  opportunity  and  in  the  meantime  never  for  one  moment 
forget  either  the  offered  affront  or  the  intended  retaliation, 
showed  a  savage  barbarity  equal  to  the  red  man  of  the  Amer- 
ican forest.  The  incident  also  revealed  a  strange  mixture  of 
absolute  power  and  restrictive  rights  on  the  part  of  the 
Prankish  royalty.  Clovis  receives  out  of  all  the  spoil  noth- 
ing save  what  the  lots  allow  him  as  an  equal  among  freemen. 
At  the  same  time  he  cleaves  the  head  of  one  of  those  freemen 
without  any  judgment  of  his  peers  and  nothing  whatever  is 
said  about  it ;  rather  the  act  would  seem  to  have  strengthened 
his  hands. 

By  the  overthrow  of  Syagrius,  Clovis  at  once  obtained  pos- 
session of  Picardy,  and  a  considerable  portion  of  Lorraine. 
This  was  indeed  a  mighty  stride  toward  the  possession  of 
all  Gaul  and  was  accomplished  by  Clovis  when  only  twenty 
years  of  age.  After  history  proved  that  his  people  thor- 
oughly understood  and  appreciated  the  immense  importance 
of  this  conquest.  It  became  the  head  of  the  Prankish  do- 
minion. Immediately  upon  its  conquest  Clovis  removed  his 
capital  from  the  old  Salian  town  of  Dispargum  to  the  newly 
acquired  Roman  city  of  Soissons,  and  thence  in  a  few  years 
to  Lutetis,  a  small  mud-built  town  of  a  Celtic  tribe  known 
by  the  name  of  Parisii,  whence  came  the  name  of  Paris.  Por 
the  next  ten  years  the  young  king  occupied  himself  in 
strengthening  his  hold  upon  northern  Gaul.  He  was  in- 
volved in  a  struggle  with  the  Thuringians  and  Alamanni,  Ger- 
manic peoples  dwelling,  the  one  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine, 
the  other  in  the  region  now  known  as  Suabia.  In  493,  he 
defeated  the  Thuringians  and  drove  them  back  to  their  for- 
ests. But  this  year  was  specially  characterized,  not  so  much 
by  this  ^nctory,  as  by  his  marriage  to  Clotilda,  the  niece  of 
Gundobad,  king  of  the  Burgundians ;  an  event  which  was  to 


56  The  History  of  Christianity 

turn  the  whole  current  of  his  Hfe  and  be  a  chief  cause  of  the 
ascendancy  of  the  Frankish  kingdom.  To  understand  how 
so  much  importance  could  attach  to  the  marriage  of  a  man 
who  already  had  at  least  one  wife  and  a  son  to  succeed  him 
in  case  of  his  death,  we  must  call  to  mind  the  fact  that  all 
the  Germanic  peoples  hitherto  Christianized  had  been  con- 
verted to  the  Arian  form  of  Christianity.  Clotilda  was  a 
Catholic  although  her  people  were  Arians,  and  it  was  through 
her  instrumentality  that  Clovis  and  his  followers  were  con- 
verted from  heathenism  to  the  Catholic  faith.  The  Franks 
thus  became  a  tower  of  strength  to  the  Church  at  Rome  at 
a  time  when  her  supremacy  was  trembling  in  the  balance. 
In  496,  the  Alemanni,  no  doubt  thinking  that  they  would 
like  to  share  in  the  country  being  so  rapidly  conquered  by 
the  Franks,  crossed  over  the  Rhine  and  made  an  attack  upon 
the  Ripuarii.  These  people  were  not  able  to  defend  them- 
selves alone  and  in  their  extremity  called  upon  Clovis  to  come 
to  their  aid.  This  he  hastened  to  do  and,  with  the  combined 
forces  of  the  Ripuarii  and  Salii,  engaged  the  enemy  in  a  fierce 
battle  near  Strassburg  (Tolbiacum  or  Lulpich).  It  would 
seem  that  the  tide  of  battle  was  running  against  the  Franks 
when  Clovis,  who  had  at  divers  times  been  entreated  by  his 
wife  to  become  a  Christian,  and  who  was  in  all  probability 
already  half  convinced,  in  the  extremity  of  his  danger  now 
turned  to  this  new  source  of  strength.  Lifting  his  tear- 
streaming  eyes  to  Heaven  he  cried :  "  0  Jesus  Christ,  whom 
Clotilda  affirms  to  be  Son  of  the  Living  God,  and  who  art 
said  to  give  victory  to  them  that  trust  in  Thee ;  if  Thou  wilt 
grant  me  the  victory  over  these  mine  enemies,  I  will  believe 
and  be  baptized  in  Thy  name.  For  I  have  called  upon  my 
own  gods  and  had  no  help  from  them,  wherefore  I  believe 
that  they  have  no  power."  The  Franks  were  victorious  in 
the  struggle  and  Clovis  faithfully  fulfilled  his  vow.  He  was 
baptized  on  Christmas  Day,  496,  and  some  three  thousand 
of  his  followers  followed  his  example.  We  can  hardly  sup- 
pose that  a  souse  in  the  river  while  a  white-robed  priest  read 
the  Latin  ritual  over  them  had  much  effect  upon  the  hearts 
and  conduct  of  these  crude  barbarians,  and  yet  it  would  be 
difficult  to  overestimate  its  value.     The  baptism  of  Clovis  by 


Conquest  of  Burgwndy  57 

Bishop  Remigius  proclaimed  liim  a  champion  of  the  Catholic 
faith  against  that  Arian  form  of  Christianity  which  was,  as 
I  have  previously  said,  dominant  among  the  other  Germanic 
invaders  of  the  Roman  Empire,  The  Vandal  in  Africa,  the 
Ostrogoth  in  Italy,  the  Burgundian  in  the  valley  of  the 
Rhone,  and  the  Visigoth  in  Spain  and  Aquitaine  were  all 
upholders  of  what  the  orthodox  denounced  as  the  "  Arian 
pravity."  The  conversion  of  the  Franks  under  the  alliance 
thus  formed  really  shaped  the  whole  future  history  of  Eu- 
rope. The  conversion  of  Clovis  soon  bore  fruit  for  the 
church.  He  was  stirred  up  by  his  wife  to  avenge  the  insult.s 
that  her  uncle,  Gundobad,  king  of  the  Burgundians,  had 
heaped  upon  her  house.  The  desire  of  personal  revenge  was 
now  further  strengthened  by  the  hope  of  making  the  whole 
of  Burgundy  Catholic.  Consequently  the  entire  Frankish 
clergy  were  active  partisans  of  Clovis.  In  the  year  500  he 
marshalled  his  forces  against  Burgundy.  At  this  time  there 
were  two  kings  in  Burgundy,  Gundobad,  who  ruled  at  Lyons, 
and  Godegisel,  his  brother,  who  ruled  at  Geneva.  Godegisel 
seems  to  have  entered  into  an  alliance  with  the  Franks 
against  his  brother  but  was  in  the  end  defeated  and  slain. 
The  forces  of  Clovis  won  an  easy  victory  over  Gundobad  at 
Dijon,  and  forced  him  to  pay  tribute  and,  thereafter,  to  hold 
his  kingdom  as  a  part  of  the  Frankish  dominion.  Equal 
privileges  were  granted  to  Catholics  and  Arians  and,  in  this 
way  a  large  party,  which  deemed  its  own  interests  best  served 
by  the  Franks,  was  secured  among  the  Burgundians.  This 
led,  in  334,  to  a  complete  conquest  of  the  Burgundian  people 
and  a  union  of  interests  which  made  them  henceforth  one 
with  the  Franks.  But  Clovis  wisely  restrained  himself  from 
any  such  movement  at  the  time  of  his  victory  and  left  a 
national  king  on  his  throne.  He  pushed  on  into  Provence, 
ravaged  it  and  gave  it  to  Theodoric,  the  ruler  of  the  Ostro- 
goths, with  whom  he  was  at  this  time  on  terms  of  alliance. 

After  making  peace  with  Gundobad  and  leading  his  army 
home,  Clovis  began  to  cast  longing  eyes  toward  the  Visigothic 
kingdom  where  Alaric  II  now  ruled.  Here  he  had  the  same 
pretext  for  attack  and  the  same  means  of  success  which  were 
his  in  his  struggle  with  Burgundy.     The  Visigoths  were  Ari- 


58  The  History  of  Christianity 

ans  and  as  such  weiv  at  enmity  with  the  bishops  of  southern 
Gaul,  who  were  all  Catholics.  The  latter  looked  to  Clovis 
as  their  champion  and  were  only  too  glad  to  see  trouble 
brewing  between  Alaric  II  and  the  king  of  the  Franks. 
Alaric  protested,  in  a  council  held  in  506,  that  he  had  no 
desire  whatever  to  oppress  the  bishops  or  persecute  the  Cath- 
olics, and  his  actions  were  in  accord  with  these  words ;  but 
trouble  was  nevertheless  bound  to  follow  when  the  Catholic 
clergy  throughout  Aquitaine  were  only  seeking  for  a  pretext 
to  call  in  the  Frankish  swords  to  crush  Arianism,  while  Clo- 
vis, on  his  part,  was  but  waiting  a  suitable  opportunity  to 
add  southern  Ga\il  to  his  other  possessions.  In  507,  he  as- 
sembled his  leading  chieftains  and  said  to  them :  "  It  dis- 
pleases me  that  these  Arians  should  possess  a  portion  of  the 
Gauls ;  march  we  forth  with  the  help  of  God,  drive  we  them 
from  that  land,  for  it  is  very  goodly,  and  bring  we  it  under 
our  own  power."  The  Frankish  chieftains  applauded  their 
king  and  the  army  forthwith  set  out  on  the  march  toward 
Poitiers,  where  Alaric  was  at  that  time  encamped.  Miracu- 
lous signs  and  portents  seemed  to  have  pointed  out,  to  the 
pious  recorder  of  his  exploits,  Clovis  as  the  hero  of  the  true 
faith  who  was  to  free  a  people  from  the  burden  of  the  heretic. 
A  white  doe,  says  Gregory  of  Tours,  pointed  out  the  ford  in 
the  river  Dienne,  while  a  meteor  illumined  the  Frankish  camp 
and  lighted  up  the  way.  Thus  piloted  on  his  way  by  divine 
messengers,  Clovis  led  his  army  safely  to  the  plain  of  Vouille, 
not  far  from  Poitiers.  It  is  here  that  Alaric  prepared  him- 
self as  best  he  could  for  the  struggle  and  the  two  armies 
met  in  a  closely  contested  battle.  Clovis  with  his  own  hand 
slew  Alaric  in  a  personal  encounter.  The  Goths,  upon  the 
death  of  their  king,  fled  in  disorder  and  Clovis  passed  on  to 
Bordeaux  where  he  went  into  winter  quarters ;  early  the  next 
spring  he  marched  with  his  entire  forces  to  Toulouse  which 
offered  no  resistance.  Here  he  found  a  portion  of  the  treas- 
ure of  the  Visigothic  kings.  From  this  place  he  hastened  to 
the  siege  of  Carcasonne,  which  was  the  old  Roman  strong- 
hold of  Septimania.  Here  his  conquest  ended.  Theodoric 
sent  an  Ostrogothic  armj'^  over  the  Alps  to  aid  their  kinsmen 
in  their  struggle  with  the  Franks.      The  latter  were  defeated 


Franks  Under  Clovis  59 

in  a  battle  near  Aries  and  forced  to  retire  beyond  the  Loire. 
Thus  Spain  and  southern  Gaul  (Gallia  Narbonensis  and 
Provence)  were  saved  to  the  Visigoths,  Clovis  gained  by 
this  campaign  all  of  Aquitania,  and  before  going  home,  halted 
at  Tours  and  organized  his  new  territory. 

While  there  at  Tours  he  was  flattered  by  receiving  from 
Anastasius,  Emperor  of  the  East,  an  embassy  bringing  him 
the  titles  and  insignia  of  Patrician  and  Consul  of  Rome. 
Donning,  in  the  Basilica  of  St.  Martin,  the  purple  tunic  and 
chlam3^s  of  a  Roman  senator,  Clovis  rode  through  the  streets 
of  the  old  Roman  city  scattering  largesse  among  the  crowd. 
The  letter  of  Anastasius  was  the  first  of  a  long  series  of 
courtesies  which  passed  between  the  Roman  Emperors  and 
the  orthodox  kings  of  the  Franks.  At  a  later  time  they 
assumed  a  tone  far  other  than  flattering.  On  leaving  Tours 
he  returned  to  Paris  where  he  established  his  capital.  This 
remained  the  political  center  of  his  dominions,  the  intermedi- 
ate point  between  the  early  settlements  of  his  race  and  his 
new  Gallic  conquests.  Here  he  remained,  giving  the  next 
few  years  of  his  life  to  the  organization  and  consolidation 
of  his  vast  domain.  By  rapid  conquest  he  had  added  to  the 
modest  little  territory  about  Tournai,  which  he  had  received 
from  his  father,  the  entire  kingdom  of  Syagrius,  Burgundy, 
and  Aquitaine. 

While  Clovis  had  busied  himself  with  the  acquisition  of 
these  outside  territories,  the  Prankish  power  at  home  was 
divided  among  several  puppet  kings,  making  thus  but  a  loose 
confederacy.  It  was  impossible  for  Clovis  long  to  content 
himself  with  this  condition  of  aff"airs ;  he  was  too  powerful 
and  two  ambitious  to  remain  long  in  the  position  of  a  mere 
partnership-king.  His  first  step  toward  consolidation  was 
to  sweep  away  the  petty  kings  of  the  Salian  Franks.  Rag- 
nachar,  who  remained  at  Cambrai,  was  a  relative  of  Clovis 
and  had  given  him  valuable  help  in  his  struggle  with  Sya- 
grius, but  when  the  time  came  for  removing  him  he  was  forced 
into  a  one-sided  contest  with  Clovis,  defeated,  and  then  put 
to  death  for  disgracing  the  royal  family  by  permitting  him- 
self to  be  beaten.  Chararic,  another  Salian  king,  was  cap- 
tured by  deceit,  shorn  of  his  long  locks,  and  turned  into  a 


60  The  History  of  Christianity 

priest,  while  his  son  was  at  the  same  time  ordained  a  deacon. 
Later  these  two  were  put  to  death  because  the  son  was  re- 
ported to  have  given  comfort  to  his  father  with  the  saying 
that  "  leaves  might  yet  sprout  forth  from  their  lopped 
branches."  Lastly  Sigibert,  king  of  the  Ripuarii,  who  had 
been  the  ally  of  Clovis  in  his  war  with  Alaric,  had  to  be  dis- 
posed of.  Clovis  here  made  use  of  a  most  dastardly  artifice 
in  order  to  gain  his  end.  Sigibert  was  well  advanced  in  years 
and  was  lame  by  reason  of  a  wound  received  while  aiding 
Clovis  in  his  wars  of  conquest.  He  had  a  son,  Cloderic  by 
name,  a  young  and  ambitious  man.  Clovis  sent  a  secret 
messenger  to  this  young  man,  saying:  "  Thy  father  hath 
become  old  and  his  wound  causeth  him  to  limp  on  one  foot ; 
if  he  should  die,  his  kingdom  Avill  come  to  thee  of  right  to- 
gether with  our  friendship."  Thus  incited  Cloderic  had  his 
father  assassinated  while  he  slept  in  his  bed,  and  immediately 
sent  messengers  to  Clovis  carrying  the  news  to  him,  and 
asking  that  he  send  envoys  to  receive  a  portion  of  the  treas- 
ure of  the  late  king.  These  were  sent  and  while  going 
through  the  form  of  examining  the  treasures,  they  clove  the 
skull  of  the  young  king  with  a  battle-axe.  Clovis  now  went 
to  Cologne  and  called  an  assembly  of  the  Ripuarii.  Before 
this  august  body  he  denied  most  emphatically  that  he  was  in 
any  way  responsible  for  the  death  of  their  king,  and  ad\ased 
them  to  elect  him  to  the  vacant  throne.  This  they  did  in 
accordance  with  their  usual  custom.  Clo\as  now  turned  his 
attention  to  the  other  minor  tribes  and  by  like  strategy  and 
murder  succeeded  in  removing  his  last  rival,  in  this  way  con- 
solidating the  entire  power  of  the  Franks.  His  methods 
were  barbarous,  and  it  is  doubtful  whether  Clovis  was  ever 
anything  but  a  barbarian  at  heart:  His  many  murders 
seemed  never  to  have  disturbed  his  peace  of  mind,  and  the 
spilling  of  blood  never  deterred  him  from  carrying  out  his 
policy  of  self-aggrandizement  and  unification.  But  we  must 
not  judge  him  by  our  own  standards.  Murder  has  ever  been 
looked  upon  by  primitive  peoples  as  an  offense  easily  con- 
doned, and  the  Germanic  laws  revealed  the  fact  that  cow- 
ardice was  a  far  greater  offense  in  the  eye  of  the  German 
than  was  the  taking  of  life.     There  can  be  no  doubt  but  Clo- 


Death  of  Clovis  61 

vis  accomplished  a  great  work  for  his  people  and  laid  the 
foundations  for  the  supremacy  of  France  in  European  affairs. 
Still  we  can  scarcely  restrain  a  smile  when  we  read  the  words 
of  the  pious  Gregory  of  Tours :  "  Thus  did  God  daily  de- 
liver the  enemies  of  Clovis  into  his  hands  because  he  walked 
before  His  face  with  an  upright  heart." 

Clovis  lived  but  a  few  years  after  completing  his  work  of 
unification.  He  died  November  27,  511,  at  Paris  and  was 
buried  in  the  Church  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul,  built  by  his 
wife,  Clotilda,  who  survived  him.  He  left  four  sons  among 
whom  his  great  kingdom  was  divided  after  the  manner  of  pri- 
vate property.  If  Clovis  was  a  strong  lion,  as  the  "  Gesta 
Francorum  "  has  it,  now  began  the  reign  of  the  leopards, 
the  bears,  and  the  wolves,  the  dogs  and  the  jackals.  Certain 
it  is  that  he  was  followed  by  no  man  worthy  of  being  his 
successor.  His  children  inherited  his  cruelty  with  little  or 
none  of  his  ability.  For  more  than  two  hundred  years,  from 
511  to  752,  when  the  Merwings  ceased  to  rule,  there  really 
is  nothing  which  we  may  call  history;  only  a  chaos  of  plot- 
ting and  fighting  and  murder  in  which  twenty-eight  so- 
called  kings  took  part  in  turn,  only  to  pass  down  and  justly 
be  forgotten. 

The  time  had  now  arrived  when  France  must  shake  her- 
self free  of  the  sloth  and  inaction  which  had  taken  possession 
of  her  kings.  A  certain  amount  of  good  sense  and  practical 
eflficiency  must  be  the  portion  of  that  person  who  would  rule 
even  barbarians.  When  this  endowment  is  wanting  in  rul- 
ers, the  nation  or  community  seeks  elsewhere  for  these  quali- 
ties, for  without  them  government  is  impossible.  The  Mer- 
wing  rulers  at  last  drove  the  Prankish  people  to  this  ex- 
tremity. They  found  the  qualities  they  were  looking  for  in 
a  family  descended  in  the  one  line  from  Pippin  of  Landen, 
in  the  other  from  the  saintly  Arnulf,  Archbishop  of  Metz, 
and  upon  them  they  bestowed  the  real  government  of  the  na- 
tion while  the  shadow-kings  but  rode  in  now  and  then  to 
the  palace  or  assembly  from  their  country  home  to  wear  the 
foolish  trappings  of  a  power  which  had  long  since  deserted 
them.  The  family  of  Pippin  was  a  wealthy  and  aristocratic 
one  which  was  high  in  ecclesiastical  affairs  and  furnished  sev- 


62  The  History  of  Christianity 

eral  bishops  to  the  church.  This  union  with  the  church  was 
of  great  value  to  the  Mayors  of  the  Palace,  as  it  gave  the 
influence  of  the  clergy  to  Austrasia  rather  than  Neustria  in 
the  struggle  which  culminated  in  the  battle  of  Testry.  Pip- 
pin of  Heristal,  the  grandson  of  Pippin  of  Landen,  now 
ruled  over  all  the  Frankish  dominions  with  the  title  of  Duke 
of  Austrasia.  The  annals  of  the  reign  are  very  meager, 
but  we  can  glean  from  them  at  least  three  important  acts 
that  were  performed  during  his  sway  of  twenty-seven  years. 
He  struggled  without  cessation  to  keep  or  bring  back,  under 
the  rule  of  the  Franks,  the  Germanic  nations  on  the  east 
side  of  the  Rhine,  the  Frisians,  Saxons,  Thuringians,  Bava- 
rians, and  Alamanni.  He  rekindled  in  Austrasia  the  national 
spirit  and  some  political  activity  by  summoning  again  the 
old  folk-moot  or  national  assembly  which  the  early  Merwings 
had  allowed  to  perish.  Lastly,  he  understood  fully  for 
France  the  importance  of  the  conversion  to  Christianity 
of  the  Germanic  peoples  beyond  the  Rhine  and  he,  there- 
fore, aided  with  all  his  might  the  zeal  of  the  popes  and  mis- 
sionaries who  were  devoted  to  this  work.  This  last  was 
probably  the  most  praiseworthy  of  all  his  undertakings.  At 
the  time  of  his  death,  which  occurred  in  714,  Pippin  went  far 
to  undo  what  he  had  accomplished  during  his  lifetime.  He 
had  two  wives,  Plectrude  and  Alpaida.  It  would  seem  that 
he  had  repudiated  the  former  in  order  to  marry  the  latter 
and  that,  too,  without  the  sanction  of  the  church.  By  canon 
law  this  latter  marriage  was  illegal  and  children  born  of  this 
union  would  be  incapable  of  inheriting  after  the  father.  By 
his  first  marriage  he  had  two  sons,  Drogo  and  Grimwald. 
Drogo  died  of  a  fever,  in  708,  and  was  laid  to  rest  in  the 
basilica  of  his  sainted  ancestor,  Arnulf,  at  Metz.  Grimwald 
was  assassinated  at  the  Church  of  St.  Lambert  in  Liege, 
where  he  had  stopped  to  pray  while  journeying  to  visit  his 
father  who  lay  sick  at  Jupille.  Grimwald  left  one  son,  a 
child  some  six  years  of  age.  Pippin  was  exceedingly  fond  of 
this  little  grandson  and  recognized  him  as  his  heir,  passing 
by  his  two  sons  by  Alpaida,  Charles  and  Childebrand. 
Charles  was  at  this  time  twenty-five  years  old  and  had  al- 
ready distinguished  himself  in  a  marked  degree  for  capacity 


Civil  Wars  63 

and  valor.  This  rendered  the  condition  of  affairs  strangely 
complex.  In  the  first  place,  there  was  a  shadow-king,  Dago- 
bert  III,  now  fifteen  years  old.  This  boy-king  had  for 
Mayor  of  the  Palace  and  confidential  adviser  a  little  child 
of  six.  Lastly,  this  little  child  had  a  "  very  prudent " 
grandmother  who,  as  regent,  attempted  to  rule  all.  The 
first  act  of  this  grandmother,  Plectrude,  on  being  made  re- 
gent, was  to  imprison  her  step-son,  Charles,  in  a  castle  at 
Cologne.  Upon  this  a  storm  burst  forth  which  came  near 
sweeping  away  the  entire  Frankish  monarchy.  The  Neus- 
trians  arose  and,  having  chosen  as  their  leader  one  of  their 
own  countrymen,  Raginfrid  by  name,  declared  war  upon 
Plectrude  and  her  grandson,  Theudwald,  and  inflicted  upon 
them  a  crushing  defeat.  Dagobert  III  died  shortly  after- 
wards and  a  priest  of  Merwing  blood  was  brought  forth  from 
his  retreat  and  crowned  king  with  the  title  of  Chilperic  II. 
The  civil  war  dragged  on  till  715,  when  the  Austrasians  set 
Charles  at  liberty  and  rose  en  masse  against  Plectrude. 
They  succeeded,  after  two  years  of  struggle,  in  overthrowing 
the  Neustrians  and  their  alHes  at  Cambrai  and  removing 
Plectrude  from  all  power  by  shutting  her  up  in  a  convent. 
Charles  was  now  firmly  established  as  ruler  over  all  the 
Franks  with  the  title  of  Duke  of  Austrasia. 

The  one  event  of  world-wide  importance  in  Charles'  lead- 
ership of  the  Franks  was  his  victory  over  the  Moslem  in- 
vaders of  Gaul.  Here  he  acted  as  the  champion  of  Chris- 
tianity against  Mohammedanism.  In  718,  the  Arabs,  al- 
ready masters  of  nearly  all  of  Spain,  poured  over  the  Pyre- 
nees into  the  Narbonese  district  and  attempted  the  conquest 
of  the  southern  part  of  Gaul.  In  721  they  made  an  attack 
upon  Toulouse,  but  Odo,  the  ruler  of  that  city,  drove  them 
back  again  into  Spain.  Eleven  years  afterwards  Abd-el- 
Rahman,  commander  of  the  Kalif's  army  in  Spain,  crushed 
the  oposition  which  Odo  was  able  to  offer,  sacked  Bordeaux, 
and  ravaged  Aqmtaine  far  and  wide.  Odo  fled  to  Charles 
for  aid,  who  hastily  gathered  together  all  his  strength  and 
gave  battle  to  the  Arab  host  between  Tours  and  Poitiers. 
This  is  known  as  the  battle  of  Tours,  although,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  struggle  took  place  some  distance  from  that  city. 


64  The  History  of  Christianity 

It  was  here  that  the  Arabian  horsemen  met  the  footmen  of 
the  West;  the  Semitic  race  made  trial  of  strength  with  the 
Germanic;  the  civilization  of  the  East,  under  the  banner  of 
the  Crescent,  met  and  tried  issues  with  that  of  the  Cross. 
And  the  Cross  was  victorious ;  the  brave  leader  of  the  Mos- 
lem host  lay  dead  upon  the  field,  and  Charles  here  won  for 
himself  the  title  of  "  the  Hammer  "  (Martel).  The  remain- 
der of  his  reign  was  a  mere  monotony  of  ceaseless  strife 
with  the  half-subjugated  Saxons  to  the  northeast  beyond  the 
Rhine,  and  the  enemies  to  the  south  of  the  Loire.  Charles 
died  in  741,  dividing  his  power  between  his  sons,  Carloman 
and  Pippin.  To  Carloman  fell  the  Germanic  part,  Aus- 
trasia,  Thuringia,  and  Swavia.  To  Pippin  fell  the  Gallic 
part,  Neustria,  Burgundy,  and  Provence.  Thus  Carloman 
had  the  Saxon  enemy  to  contend  with,  while  Pippin  must 
needs  guard  against  the  inroads  of  the  Saracen  and  the  ill 
will  of  southern  Gaul. 

Carloman  ruled  his  share  wisely  and  well  for  six  years 
when,  being  possessed  with  a  desire  for  rest  and  retirement, 
he  gave  his  temporal  power  to  his  brother  Pippin  and  en- 
tered a  monastery.  Pippin,  known  as  "  the  Short,"  now 
became  sole  ruler  of  the  Franks.  Shortly  after  the  retire- 
ment of  Carloman,  Childeric  II  ascended  the  throne,  thus 
keeping  up  the  shadowy  rule  of  the  Merwing  family.  Pip- 
pin now  thought  the  time  ripe  for  the  assumption  of  the 
crown,  for  the  name  as  well  as  the  fame  of  ruling,  and  began 
to  look  about  him  for  a  pretext  for  setting  aside  Childeric 
without  losing  the  good  will  of  the  nobility.  To  accomplish 
this  Pippin  sought  the  aid  of  the  pope  and  for  this  a  door 
was  open.  In  741,  Gregory  III  had  written  to  Charles  Mar- 
tel asking  his  help  against  the  Lombards,  and  offering  in 
return  title  of  Patrician  of  the  Romans,  and  even  hinting  at 
a  revived  Western  Empire.  However,  Charles  and  Gregory 
both  died  within  the  year  and  the  matter  was  dropped  for  a 
time.  Pippin  had  heard  of  this  from  his  father  and  now 
sent  ambassadors  to  the  pope,  Zacharias,  to  reopen  nego- 
tiations. The  new  pope  had  taken  up  the  quarrel  with  the 
Lombards  where  his  predecessor  had  left  it  and  was  very 
much  in  need  of  just  such  aid  as  Pippin  was  able  to  furnish. 


Pippin's  Bargain  with  the  Pope  65 

He  now  made  answer,  to  Pippin's  inquiry,  that  "  he  who  has 
the  power  ought  also  to  have  the  name  of  king."  He  further 
said,  "  If  you  will  smite  the  Lombard,  we  will  transfer  to 
you  the  seigniorial  rights  once  belonging  to  the  emperors, 
now  in  abeyance."  This  was  just  such  aid  as  Pippin  desired. 
He  therefore  called  together  an  assembly  of  all  the  Franks. 
With  their  hearty  approval  he  took  Childeric  II,  deposed 
him,  and  was  declared  king  in  his  stead.  He  was  crowned 
with  great  pomp  and  ceremony  at  the  old  Roman  city  of 
Soissons,  in  752.  As  soon  as  Pippin  was  made  king,  he 
hastened  to  redeem  his  promise  to  the  pope.  He  crossed  the 
Alps  with  a  large  army  and  fell  upon  the  Lombards,  whom 
he  defeated  and  whose  king  he  shut  up  in  Pavia.  Later  a 
peace  was  ratified  in  accordance  with  the  terms  of  which  the 
Lombard  king  yielded  up  the  Exarchate  of  Ravenna  which 
he  had  but  recently  taken  possession  of.  This  Pippin  gave 
to  the  "pope  and  the  Republic  of  Rome"  (755).  This  is 
the  famous  "  Donation  of  Pippin  "  which  marked  the  begin- 
ning of  the  temporal  power  of  the  popes.  This  is  somewhat 
fully  discussed  in  another  chapter. 

After  this  Pippin  engaged  in  a  tedious  war  against  the 
Aquitanians.  In  760  he  made  an  expedition  against  Wai- 
far,  Duke  of  Aquitania,  because  he  had  infringed  upon  the 
rights  and  property  of  the  Prankish  churches  situated  in  his 
territory.  This  trouble  lasted  for  eight  years,  until  the 
death  of  Waifar,  when  the  whole  territory  submitted  and 
measures  were  taken  to  solidify  and  unite  the  newly  acquired 
territory.  This  task  was  scarcely  completed  before  the 
death  of  the  king.  Upon  the  close  of  hostilities  Pippin  im- 
mediately undertook  the  completion  of  the  organization  of 
the  church.  The  internal  regulations  of  the  church  had 
been  carried  on  after  the  death  of  Boniface,  in  754,  upon 
lines  laid  down  by  him.  In  Jul}^  755,  an  important  council 
was  held  in  Verneuil  at  which  not  only  nearly  all  the  bishops 
of  Gaul  were  present  but  Pippin  himself  was  there,  "  and 
took  an  interested  part  in  all  its  discussions  and  decisions." 
This  council  attempted  the  complete  organization  of  the 
Prankish  church.  By  its  provisions  a  bishop  was  to  be  ap- 
pointed for  each  city  who  should  be  under  the  metropolitan 


66  The  History  of  Christianity 

(archbishop)  of  the  archiepiscopal  see  to  which  his  city  be- 
longed.    Each  bishop  was  to  have  rule  over  the  clergy,  both 
regular  and  secular,  in  his  own  diocese.     A  synod  was  to  be 
held  twice  a  year.     The  first  was  to  be  held  in  March  when- 
ever the  king  should  appoint,  and  in  his  presence ;  the  second 
was  to  meet  in  October,  either  at  Soissons  or  wherever  the 
bishops  agreed  at  the  March  synod.     At  this  synod  all  bish- 
ops under  metropolitans  should  be  present,  and  all  others, 
whether  bishops,  abbots,  or  presbyters,  whom  the  metropoli- 
tans   summoned.     The   monks    and   nuns    must   observe   the 
monastic  rule  under  the  orders  of  the  bishop  of  the  diocese. 
In  case  opposition  to  the  authority  of  the  bishop  arises  the 
metropolitan  is  to  be  notified,  and  if  this  fails,  recourse  may 
be  had  to  the  public  synod  held  in  March.     In  event  of  fur- 
ther refusal,  the  offender  may  be  deposed  and  excommuni- 
cated by  all  the  bishops  and  another  put  in  his  place  at  the 
synod  by  the  word  and  will  of  the  king  or  by  the  consent 
of   the  bishops.     There  is   to  be  no  public  baptistry   in   a 
diocese  save  where  the  bishop  appoints,  but  in  case  of  neces- 
sity or  illness  presbyters  whom  the  bishop  has  appointed  may 
baptize  wherever  convenient.      Presbyters  are  to  be  under  the 
rule  of  the  bishops,  and  none  is  to  baptize  or  to  celebrate 
Mass  without  the  order  of  the  bishop  of  the  diocese.     All 
presbyters  were  to  assemble  at  the  council  of  the  bishops. 
A  bishop  may  depose  or  excommunicate  his  presbyter  for 
cause.     Being  excommunicated,  he  could  not  eat  nor  drink 
with  any  Christian,  nor  accept  his  gifts,  nor  give  the  kiss 
nor  unite  in  prayer,  nor  exchange  greetings  until  reconciled 
with  his  bishop.     If  any  claims  to  be  unjustly  excommuni- 
cated he  may  go  to  the  metropolitan  and  have  a  new  trial. 
If  still  unwilling  to  submit,  he  will  be  forced  into  exile  by 
"the  king.     Canon  XX  of  Chalcedon  is  repeated,  forbidding 
him  to  remove  to  another  city  or  to  serve  under  a  layman 
except  in  case  of  necessity.     Wandering  bishops,  without  a 
fixed  diocese,  shall  not  serve  in  any  diocese  nor  ordain  except 
by   the   order   of   the   bishop   of   the   diocese.     Any   offense 
against  this  rule  is  to  be  punished  by  the  synod.      Sunday  is 
to  be  kept,  not  after  the  Jewish  fashion  of  absolute  idleness, 
but  so  as  not  to  interfere  with  going  to  church.     But  of  this 


Pippin's  Bargain  with  the  Pope  67 

the  clergy  and  not  the  laity  shall  be  judge.  All  marriages, 
both  of  nobles  and  low  born,  shall  be  performed  publicly. 
Clergy  shall  not  administer  estates  nor  engage  in  secular 
affairs  except  for  churches,  widows  and  orphans,  by  the  order 
of  the  bishop.  In  case  of  the  death  of  a  bishop,  his  bishop- 
ric shall  not  be  left  vacant  more  than  three  months  except 
by  great  and  urgent  necessity.  Surely  at  the  next  synod  a 
bishop  shall  be  ordained.  No  one  shall  be  tried  by  the  laity 
except  by  the  express  order  of  his  bishop  or  abbot.  All  im- 
munities are  assured  to  all  churches.  Counts  and  judges  at 
their  courts  shall  try  first  the  cases  of  orphans,  widows  and 
churches,  and  others  afterwards.  No  one  shall  attain  any 
office  or  rank  in  the  church  for  money ;  nor  shall  any  bishop 
or  abbot  or  layman  take  any  fee  for  administering  justice. 

The  important  document  quoted  above  completed  the  es- 
tablishment of  the  diocesan  system  throughout  the  Frankish 
Kingdom.  It  also  established  the  system  of  metropolitans 
or  archbishops  but  it  says  nothing  about  the  Bishop  of  Rome 
and  a  final  appeal  lay  to  the  synod  or  last  of  all  to  the  king. 
Thus  the  work  of  Pippin  was  finished.  The  work  which  he 
accomplished  in  the  spread  of  Christianity  and  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  church  was  destined  to  outlast  his  attempts  at 
political  organization  and  unity. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

THE   ANOLO-SAXONS 

I  HAVE  already  had  occasion  to  mention  the  people  who 
have  given  a  name  to  this  chapter,  for  to  this  tribe  be- 
longed the  great  German  hero,  Hermann,  who  organized  the 
first  successful  resistance  to  Roman  aggression  and  who  used 
his  battle-axe  with  such  telling  effect  at  the  famous  battle  of 
the  Teutoberger  Wald  where  the  Roman  soldiers  of  Varus 
were  so  disastrously  defeated.  The  Saxons  were  very  closely 
related  to  the  Lombards,  whose  journey  to  the  valley  of  the 
Po  has  been  traced  in  another  chapter,  and  who  were  over- 
thrown by  the  Franks  and  absorbed  by  the  abject  Roman 
population  and  their  national  characteristics  lost.  From 
the  time  of  Tacitus,  at  least,  the  Saxons  occupied  the  low- 
lands along  the  shores  of  the  North  Sea,  from  the  mouth 
of  the  Ems  to  that  of  the  Elbe.  West  of  these,  reaching  as 
far  as  the  mouth  of  the  Rhine,  lay  the  Frisians,  a  closely 
related  tribe,  while  the  Angles  and  Jutes,  also  kindred  tribes, 
occupied  what  is  now  known  as  the  Danish  Peninsula.  All 
these  peoples  were  embraced  in  the  later  Saxon  Confederacy 
and  were  known  by  the  general  name  of  Saxons,  or  "  Ax- 
men."  They  all  belonged  to  the  Low-German  branch  of  the 
great  Germanic  family  and  were  very  closely  related  to  the 
Scandinavians  and  Netherlanders,  having  with  them  a  com- 
mon religion,  a  common  speech,  and  common  social  and  po- 
litical institutions.  It  is  scarcely  to  be  supposed  that  at  this 
stage  of  their  history  they  looked  upon  themselves  as  form- 
ing one  people,  but  each  was  destined  to  share  in  the  con- 
quest of  Britain  and  to  contribute  a  part  to  the  making  of 
the  one  great  English  nation. 

The  lands  in  which  these  various  Saxon  tribes  dwelt  had 
the  same  features.     They  were  largely  beneath  the  sea-level 

and  were,  therefore,  marshy  and  waste,  with  thinly  inter- 

!  .  68 


Nature  of  the  People  69 

spersed  knolls  of  gravel  and  sand.  Long  shallow  rivers 
dragged  themselves  along  through  fen-lands  with  such  a  slug- 
gish movement  that  the  eye  could  scarcely  determine  the 
direction  of  the  current.  Everywhere  were  stagnant  pools 
formed  by  the  wind's  causing  the  waves  to  overleap  the 
banks.  Over  the  whole  land  hung  perpetual  mists  and  fogs 
which  caused  the  abundant  verdure  to  drip  with  moisture. 
The  land  was  covered  with  immense  forests  of  oak  and  beech, 
while  the  whole  narrow,  low-lying  coast  was  beaten  by  a 
stormy  and  relentless  sea,  the  shallow  waters  of  which  were 
churned  to  their  entire  depths  by  the  winds  which  swept 
around  Scotland  and  were  deflected  by  the  Norway  coast. 
*'  Rain,  wind  and  surge,  mist,  fog  and  gloomy  forest,  varies 
in  winter  with  frost,  snow  and  ice,  with  threatening  deluge 
of  waters  from  the  angry  sea ;  all  these  were  the  companions 
of  the  Saxons." 

The  people  who  inhabited  these  low  and  gloomy  forest 
lands  largely  partook  of  the  nature  of  their  surroundings. 
They  were  a  half-naked  and  savage  people,  restless,  harsh, 
and  cruel.  The  historian  Taine  thus  admirably  describes 
them:  "  Huge  white  bodies,  cold-blooded,  with  fierce  blue 
eyes,  reddish  flaxen  hair,  ravenous  stomachs,  filled  with  milk 
and  cheese,  heated  by  strong  drinks ;  of  a  cold  temperament, 
slow  to  love,  home-stayers,  prone  to  brutal  drunkenness. 
These  are  to  this  day  the  features  which  descent  and  climate 
preserve  in  the  race,  and  these  are  what  the  Roman  historian 
discovered  in  their  former  country."  Storm-beaten  amid 
the  dangers  and  hardships  of  seafaring  life,  rough  and  bois- 
terous as  their  own  sea,  the  Saxons  were  pre-eminently  fitted 
by  nature  for  endurance  and  enterprise.  They  were  inured 
to  misfortune  and  scorners  of  danger.  For  such  as  they 
the  sea  had  no  terrors.  "  They  left  the  cultivation  of  the 
land  and  the  care  of  the  flocks  to  the  women  and  slaves  and 
gave  their  undivided  attention  to  war  and  pillage,  which 
occupations  the}^  deemed  the  only  worthy  ones  for  a  free- 
man." They  dashed  to  sea  in  their  two-sailed  barks,  steered 
by  booty-loving  hands  against  the  dwellings  of  men  with 
whom  "  God  was  angry,"  and,  thus  divinely  directed,  landed 
anywhere,  killed  everything,  and,  having  sacrificed  in  honor 


70  The  History  of  Christianity 

of  their  gods  the  tithe  of  their  prisoners,  and  leaving  be- 
hind them  the  red  Hght  of  their  burnings,  went  farther  on  to 
begin  again.  An  old  Britsh  litany  written  at  this  time  had 
the  following:  "  Lord  deliver  us  from  the  fury  of  the  Jutes. 
Of  all  the  barbarians  these  are  the  strongest  of  body  and 
heart,  the  most  cruelly  ferocious."  Their  life  upon  the  sea 
made  them  fearless.  They  laughed  at  winds  and  storms  and 
sang,  "  The  blast  of  the  tempest  aids  our  oars ;  the  bellowing 
of  the  thunder  hurts  us  not ;  the  hurricane  is  our  servant, 
and  drives  us  whither  we  wish  to  go." 

The  social  and  institutional  life  of  the  Saxons  in  their  old 
home  is  very  imperfectly  known.  Their  country  was  not 
contiguous  to  any  part  of  the  Roman  empire,  and  yet  it  is 
certain  that  they  had  felt,  in  no  small  degree,  the  influence 
of  Roman  civilization.  Brooches,  sword-belts,  and  shield- 
bosses  have  been  discovered  in  Sleswick  which  are  very  clearly 
of  Roman  make  or  patterned  after  Roman  models.  These 
cannot  be  dated  later  than  the  end  of  the  third  century. 
The  vessels  of  twisted  glass  which  were  made  use  of  at  the 
tables  of  English  and  Saxon  cliieftains  were  surely  the  prod- 
uct of  Roman  glass-works,  while  Roman  coins  brought  to 
light  in  the  peat-mosses  of  Sleswick  afl'ord  a  very  conclusive 
proof  of  direct  intercourse  with  the  empire.  Moreover,  out- 
side of  the  influence  of  Rome,  the  Saxon  tribes  were  far  from 
being  mere  savages.  They  were  fierce  warriors,  indeed,  but 
they  were  also  persistent  fishermen  and  ardent  cultivators 
of  the  soil.  They  were  as  proud  of  their  skill  in  handling 
the  rude  plow  and  the  mattock,  or  steering  the  boat  with 
which  they  hunted  the  whale  and  walrus,  as  they  were 
of  the  dexterity  with  which  they  wielded  the  sword  and 
the  spear.  Like  all  Germans,  they  were  hard  drinkers  and 
sat  long  at  the  "  alefeast  "  which  was  the  center  of  their 
social  life.  The  fervor  which  they  showed  in  battle  also  ex- 
hibited itself  in  their  drinking-bouts  which  ofttimes  lasted 
till  the  break  of  day.  In  the  strong-beamed  hall  of  their 
king  or  alderman  the}^  ranged  themselves  upon  the  benches 
about  the  wall,  while  the  queen  or  lady  with  her  train  of 
maidens  passed  round  among  them  with  the  ale-bowl  or  mead- 
bowl   from  which   all  were  helped  with  an  unsparing  hand 


The  Saxons  in  Their  Homes  71 

while  the  gleemen  sank  the  hero-songs  of  their  race.  The 
cups  from  which  tliey  drank  were  round  of  bottom  and  had 
to  be  held  in  the  hand  until  emptied.  This  fact  in  itself 
incited  to  immoderate  drinking  as  it  was  deemed  discourteous 
to  spill  any  of  the  precious  liquor  and  a  lack  of  manhood 
to  be  unable  to  drain  the  cup  at  a  draught.  "  Rings,  amu- 
lets, ear-rings,  and  neck-pendants  proved  in  their  workman- 
ship the  deftness  of  the  goldsmith's  art.  Cloaks  were  often 
fastened  with  golden  buckles  of  curious  and  exquisite  form, 
set  sometimes  with  rough  jewels  and  inlaid  with  enamel. 
The  bronze  boar-crest  on  the  warrior's  helmet,  the  intricate 
adornment  of  the  Avarrior's  shield,  tell  alike  the  honor  in 
which  the  smith  was  held  in  their  tale  of  industrial  art." 
Their  farming  implements  were  very  crude  and  primitive, 
more  like  those  used  by  the  Celts  of  the  Neolithic  Age  than 
those  of  the  Romans,  while  their  pottery  was  of  the  coarsest 
and  rudest  make  possible. 

Although  Christianity  had  by  this  time  brought  about  the 
conversion  of  the  Roman  Empire,  it  had  not  as  yet  pene- 
trated the  Saxon  home,  where  paganism  still  sat  enshrined. 
Of  this  paganism  we  know  very  little,  but  it  was  doubtless 
the  same  as  that  of  the  other  branches  of  the  Gennanic  race. 
Woden  was  the  common  god  of  the  English  people,  the  war- 
god  of  all  the  Germans.  His  name  is  said  to  be  derived  from 
the  root  of  a  verb  meaning  to  "  go  "  or  "  wander  "  and  has 
been  supposed  by  some  to  denote  his  all-pervading  influence. 
But  this  primitive  meaning  seems  to  have  become  merged  into 
that  of  "  energy  "  and  "  impetuosity,"  so  that  Woden  would 
signify  "  the  wild,  ferocious  one."  This  is  hardly  the  light 
in  which  he  is  represented  to  us  by  Tacitus  who  speaks  of 
Woden  as  the  "  northern  Mercury."  Yet  Woden  and  Mer- 
cury had  man}'  traits  in  common.  They  were  both  the  pro- 
tectors of  boundaries  and  roads  and  the  inventors  of  letters. 
Woden  was  likewise  the  ancestor  of  every  Saxon  hero.  He 
was  the  arranger  of  battles  and  the  giver  of  victory  and  as 
such  was  held  in  greatest  reverence  by  our  ancestors.  Other 
gods  of  the  Saxon  people  are  recalled  by  the  names  of  the 
days  of  the  week.  Wednesday  is  Woden's  day.  Thursday 
is  the  day  of  Thunor,  the  northern  Thor,  the  god  of  storm 


72  The  History  of  Christianity 

and  rain,  of  thunder  and  lightning.  He  it  was  who  hurled 
his  hammer  at  those  who  offended  him,  which  instrument  of 
punishment  always  returned  to  his  hand.  To  him  were  dedi- 
cated lightning-struck  trees.  Friday  is  Frea's  day,  the  god 
of  peace  and  joy  and  fruitfulness,  of  sunshine  and  spring 
showers.  The  boar  was  sacred  to  this  god  and  its  figure 
was  worn  as  a  charm  by  warriors  on  their  helmets  and,  borne 
aloft  by  dancing  maidens,  brought  increase  to  every  field 
and  stall  they  visited.  The  boar's  head  at  Christmas  time  is 
probably  a  survial  of  the  superstitions  connected  with  this 
ceremony.  Saturday  may  well  be  a  corruption  of  "  Saturn's 
day,"  and  so  be  of  Roman  origin.  Besides  these  great  gods, 
there  were  many  lesser  ones.  Eastre,  the  god  of  the  dawn 
or  of  spring,  lends  his  name  by  a  happy  circumstance  to  the 
Christian  festival  of  the  resurrection.  According  to  the 
venerable  Bede,  all  these  gods  had  temples  in  which  were 
placed  images  and  altars,  and  priests  were  dedicated  to  their 
service. 

There  were  also  other  deities  of  a  somewhat  more  vague 
and  impersonal  nature,  but  which  were  more  intimately  asso- 
ciated -with  the  life  of  the  people.  Of  these  the  most  promi- 
nent was  the  death- goddess.  She  it  was  who  wove  the  web  of 
destiny  for  every  man  at  his  birth  and  pursued  him  with 
"  grim  and  cruel  hate."  In  the  memory  of  northern  super- 
stition she  has  lingered  long.  The  Shield-Maidens  were  the 
mighty  women  who  "  wrought  on  the  battle-field  their  toil 
and  hurled  the  thrilling  jaA^elins."  Among  the  mighty  giants 
were  Weland,  the  wondrous  craftsman  who  forged  the  sword 
with  which  Beowulf  slew  Grendel,  and  whose  name  stiU  sur- 
vives in  "  Weyland's  Smithy  "  of  Berkshire,  and  his  brother 
Aegel  who  performed  the  wondrous  feats  afterwards  related 
of  Tell  and  other  heroes.  These,  in  popular  fancy,  became 
the  hero-gods  of  legend.  Every  nook  and  cranny  were  peo- 
pled with  water-sprites  and  nixies,  from  one  of  whom,  Nicor, 
comes  "  old  Nick  "  himself.  It  will  be  seen  that  this  is  but 
the  nature-worship  which  was  common  to  all  the  Germans 
and  which  lent  itself  but  poorly  to  the  purposes  of  a  priest- 
hood. Every  freeman  was  his  own  house-priest  just  as  he 
was  his  own  judge  and  lawmaker.     These  notions  were  not 


The  Saxon  Temper  73 

out  of  keeping  with  the  materialistic  conceptions  of  the 
Christianity  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Even  now,  in  country 
districts,  traces  may  be  found  of  practices  for  the  origin  of 
which  we  must  go  back  to  the  days  of  Woden  and  Thunor. 

The  song  of  Beowulf,  the  earliest  of  English  poems,  al- 
though written  in  its  present  form  in  the  days  of  Bede  and 
Boniface,  and  having  a  thin  veil  of  Christianity  draped  about 
it,  is  in  reality  the  hero-legend  of  our  fathers  and  was  com- 
posed in  the  old  home-land  of  Sleswick.  In  it  breathes  the 
secret  of  the  moral  temper  and  the  conception  of  life  of  our 
ancestors.  Says  the  historian  Green,  "  Life  was  built  with 
theftn  not  on  the  hope  of  a  hereafter,  but  on  the  proud 
self-consciousness  of  noble  souls.  '  I  have  this  folk  ruled 
this  fifty  winters,'  sings  a  hero-king,  as  he  sits  death-smitten 
beside  the  dragon's  mound,  '  lives  there  no  folk-king  of  kings 
about  me  —  not  any  one  of  them  —  dare  in  the  war-strife 
welcome  my  onset !  Time's  change  and  chances  I  have 
abided,  held  my  own  fairly,  sought  not  to  snare  men;  oath 
never  sware  I  falsely  against  right.  So  for  all  this  may  I 
glad  be  at  heart  now,  sick  though  I  sit  here,  wounded  with 
death-wounds ! '  In  men  of  such  a  temper,  strong  with  the 
strength  of  manhood  and  full  of  the  vigor  and  the  love  of 
life,  the  sense  of  its  shortness  and  of  the  mystery  of  it  all 
woke  chords  of  a  pathetic  poetry.  An  old  rhyme  ran  as 
follows :  '  Soon  will  it  be  that  sickness  or  sword-blade  shear 
thy  strength  from  thee,  or  fire  ring  thee,  or  the  flood  whelm 
thee,  or  the  sword  grip  thee,  or  arrow  hit  thee,  or  age  over- 
take thee,  and  thy. eye's  brightness  sink  down  in  darkness.'  " 
Their  thought  seemed  to  be  that  man  struggled  in  vain  with 
the  doom  that  encompassed  him  and  which  girded  his  life 
with  a  thousand  perils  and  broke  it  at  so  short  a  span. 
The  sadness,  however,  with  which  these  Englishmen  fronted 
the  mysteries  of  life  and  death  had  nothing  in  it  of  that  un- 
manly despair  which  bids  men  eat  and  drink  and  be  merry 
for  to-morrow  they  die.  With  them,  death  left  man  still 
master  of  his  fate.  The  thought  of  good  fame  and  of  man- 
hood was  stronger  than  the  thought  of  doom.  Early  Eng- 
lish poems  continually  set  M'Orth  the  common  ideas  that,  if 
life  be  short,  there  is  all  the  more  cause  to  work  bravely  until 


74  The  History  of  Christianity 

it  is  spent.  "  Each  man  of  us  shall  abide  the  end  of  his 
lifework;  let  him  that  may  work,  work  his  doomed  deeds  ere 
death  come !  " 

The  energy  of  these  restless  peoples  drove  them  to  take  a 
part  in  the  general  onslaught  upon  Rome.  While  Visigoth, 
Ostrogoth,  Vandal,  Lombard,  and  Frank  were  making  their 
toilsome  marches  over  mountains  and  streams  and  through 
morasses  and  dreary  plains,  bent  upon  the  destruction  of  the 
empire  and  the  great  cities  to  the  south  and  west,  the  Saxons 
drove  their  war-vessels  across  the  stormy  seas  intent  upon 
the  same  mission  of  bloodshed  and  war.  This  was  no  new 
occupation  for  them.  Tribe  had  continually  warred  with 
tribe  and  village  with  village.  The  mood  of  the  Saxon  was 
pre-eminently  that  of  the  fighting  man,  venturesome,  self- 
reliant,  and  proud.  He  had  a  dash  of  hardness  and  cruelty 
within  him,  common  to  all  the  Germans,  but  this  was  en- 
nobled by  the  virtues  which  spring  from  war,  personal  cour- 
age and  loyalty  to  plighted  word.  He  had  a  high  and  stem 
sense  of  manhood.  Again  quoting  from  Green,  "  A  grim 
joy  in  hard  fighting  was  already  a  characteristic  of  the  race. 
War  was  the  Englishman's  '  shield-play,'  and  '  sword-game  ' ; 
the  gleeman's  verse  took  fresh  fire  as  he  sang  of  the  rush  of 
the  host  and  the  crash  of  its  shield-line.  Their  arms  and 
weapons,  helmet  and  mail-shirt,  tall  spear  and  javelin,  sword 
and  seax,  the  short  broad  dagger  that  hung  at  each  war- 
rior's girdle,  gathered  to  them  much  of  the  legend  and  the 
art  which  gave  color  and  poetry  to  the  life  of  Englishmen. 
Each  sword  had  its  name  like  a  living  thing.  And  next  to 
their  love  of  war  came  their  love  of  the  sea.  Everywhere, 
throughout  Beowulf's  song,  as  everywhere  throughout  the 
life  that  it  pictures,  we  catch  the  salt  whiff  of  the  sea.  The 
Englishman  was  as  proud  of  his  sea-craft  as  of  his  war- 
craft;  sword  in  teeth  he  plunged  into  the  sea  to  meet  the 
walrus  and  sea-lion;  he  told  of  his  whale-chase  amidst  the 
icy  waters  of  the  north.  Hardly  less  than  his  love  for  the 
sea  was  the  love  that  he  bore  to  the  ship  that  traversed  it. 
In  the  fond  playfulness  of  English  verse  the  ship  was  the 
'  wave-floater,'  the  '  foam-necked,'  '  like  a  bird,'  as  it  skimmed 


Saxon  Piracy  75 

the  wave-crest,  '  like  a  swan,'  as  its  curved  prow  breasted  the 
'  swan-road  '  of  the  sea." 

Although  we  have  seen  the  flag  of  the  descendants  of  these 
sea-rovers  float  over  every  sea  and  flutter  in  every  breeze 
that  sweeps  over  the  surface  of  the  earth,  yet  we  can  not 
contemplate  without  astonishment  and  admiration  these 
hardy  old  sailors,  sweeping  every  estuary  and  bay  and,  with- 
out compass,  traversing  every  ocean;  swarming  on  every 
point  and  landing  on  every  shore  which  promised  plunder  or 
a  temporary  rest  from  their  fatigues.  There  was  here  in- 
deed an  unchaining  of  the  butcherly  instincts.  Here  is  seen 
that  obstinate  and  frenzied  bravery  of  an  over-strong  tem- 
perament intensified  by  an  utter  contempt  of  death  and  a 
belief  that  the  pleasures  of  life  with  Woden  awaited  the 
warrior  who  fell  in  the  thickest  of  the  fight. 

Chance  has  preserved  for  us  one  of  the  war-keels  of  these 
early  pirates,  embedded  and  preserved  in  a  peat-bog  in  Sles- 
wick.  It  is  a  flat-bottomed  boat,  some  seventy  feet  long  and 
eight  or  nine  feet  wide,  its  sides  of  oak  board  fastened  with 
bark  ropes  and  iron  bolts.  It  was  driven  over  the  waves 
freighted  with  its  quota  of  warriors  fully  armed  for  the  fight, 
by  means  of  fifty  oars.  Their  arms,  axes,  swords,  lances, 
and  knives  were  found  heaped  together  in  its  hold.  Such  a 
boat  could  only  creep  along  from  port  to  port  during  rough 
weather.  In  smooth  weather,  however,  its  swiftness  fitted  it 
for  the  piratic  raids  in  which  men  were  engaged.  It  could 
easily  be  beached  by  reason  of  its  flat  bottom  upon  almost 
any  coast.  The  seamen  were  in  this  manner  transformed 
into  a  warrior  band  who  were  as  well  skilled  in  the  use  of 
the  sword  as  the  oar.  "  Foes  are  they,"  sang  a  Roman  poet 
of  the  time,  "  fierce  beyond  other  foes  and  cunning  as  they 
are  fierce ;  the  sea  is  their  school  of  war  and  the  storm  their 
friend;  they  are  sea-wolves  that  prey  on  the  villages  of  the 
world !  "  Here  is  the  theme  of  an  old  Saxon  love  song. 
The  son  of  an  old  earl  meets  the  daughter  of  a  neighboring 
ruler  and  immediately  falls  in  love  with  her.  He  ofi'ers  him- 
self in  marriage  seven  times  in  as  many  successive  days,  and 
is  each  time  refused  by  the  maiden  on  the  ground  that  he 


76  The  History  of  Christianity 

has  done  nothing  to  distinguish  himself ;  that  her  husband 
must  be  a  hero.  In  no  way  discouraged  by  seven  refusals, 
and  fired  by  an  ambition  to  make  himself  worthy,  he  joins 
one  of  his  father's  expeditions  in  which  he  plays  a  valiant 
part.  Immediately  on  his  return,  he  seeks  the  object  of  his 
affection  and  renews  his  offer.  "  What  have  you  done  ?  "  is 
the  query  of  the  maiden.  This  is  the  answer :  "  I  have 
marched  with  my  bloody  sword  and  the  raven  has  followed 
me;  furiously  we  fought;  we  slept  in  the  blood  of  those  who 
kept  the  gates."  The  saga  ends  with  a  description  of  the 
wedding.  If  you  can  imagine  a  lover  successfully  wooing  a 
gentle  maiden  with  such  a  love  song  as  the  above,  then 
you  have  a  very  fair  idea  of  those  Saxon  ancestors  who 
crossed  into  Britain  in  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries.  Their 
political  institutions  were  the  same  as  those  of  the  other 
Germanic  peoples,  which  we  have  already  described. 

If  now  we  glance  at  the  Isle  of  Britain,  to  which  these 
sea-robbers  are  making  their  way,  we  will  be  struck  with  the 
similarity  of  soil  and  climate  to  the  old  homeland  of  the 
invaders ;  a  flat  coast,  beaten  by  the  waters  of  the  same 
treacherous,  angry  sea;  currentless  rivers  that  ooze  their 
way  to  the  ocean ;  a  damp,  cheerless  atmosphere,  dense  with 
mist  and  fog,  and  but  seldom  pierced  by  the  rays  of  the 
sun.  Over  the  whole  land  is  spread  herbage  and  foliage 
more  dense  and  green  than  can  be  found  anywhere  else  in 
Europe,  while  the  ceaseless  drip,  drip,  drip  of  the  rain  at 
"  Dedlock  Hall  "  does  but  represent  in  miniature  the  whole 
island's  humidity.  The  trees  gathered  and  condensed  the 
vapor;  the  crops  grew  rapidly  but  ripened  slowly,  for  the 
ground  and  the  atmosphere  were  alike  overloaded  with  mois- 
ture. Caesar  accurately  described  this  in  55  b.  c.  and  these 
same  characteristics  are  noticeable  throughout  the  island 
today.  The  downs  and  the  hill-tops  alone  rose  above  the 
perpetual  tracts  of  woods  which  grew  so  densely  that  some 
districts  could  scarcely  be  penetrated.  While  Roman  civili- 
zation made  a  rapid  transformation  of  Britain  and  changed 
its  outer  aspect  from  that  which  Claudius  saw  when  he 
landed,  it  was  still  far  enough  from  being  completely  sub- 
dued.    "  In  spite   of  its   roads,   its   towns,  and  its  mining- 


The  Neolithic  Man  77 

works,  it  remained,  even  at  the  close  of  the  Roman  rule,  an 
*  isle  of  blowing  wood-lands,'  a  wild  and  half-reclaimed  coun- 
try, the  bulk  of  whose  surface  was  occupied  by  forest  and 
waste."  Four  hundred  years  of  Roman  occupation  had  not 
been  sufficient  greatly  to  change  this  aspect.  A  glance  at 
the  map  suggests  the  idea  that  Titan  hands  wrenched  Britain 
from  the  mainland  of  Europe  and  her  population  passed 
dry-shod  from  Belgic  Gaul.  The  importance  of  this  simi- 
larity of  soil  and  climate  to  that  of  the  old  Saxon  home  can- 
not easily  be  overestimated.  People  cannot  change  their 
abodes  and  pass  from  a  cold  damp  climate  to  a  warm  sunny 
one ;  from  the  plain  to  the  mountain ;  from  a  continent  to  an 
island;  without  at  the  same  time  changing  their  ideas  and 
habits  and  ways  of  thinking ;  without  modifying  in  the  course 
of  a  few  generations  their  physical  type.  This  is  the  ex- 
planation of  the  quick  decay  of  the  vandals  in  Africa,  the 
Visigoths  in  Spain,  and  the  Ostrogoths  and  Lombards  in 
Italy. 

Like  Europe,  Britain  in  prehistoric  times  had  been  occu- 
pied by  various  races  of  mankind.  Of  these  the  oldest  have 
left  little  or  no  trace  of  their  occupancy.  The  Neolithic,  or 
new-stone  men,  who  took  the  place  of  the  older  inhabitants, 
came  from  the  southeast  of  Europe  and  represented  a  far 
higher  type  of  development  than  did  the  people  whom  they 
displaced.  They  brought  with  them  domesticated  animals, 
the  dog,  ox,  pig,  sheep,  and  goat.  They  were  somewhat 
crudely  acquainted  with  the  arts  of  spinning  and  weaving. 
They  used  stone  weapons  of  warfare,  as  did  their  prede- 
cessors, but  these  they  polished  into  shapely  forms  and  fitted 
with  wooden  handles,  thus  adding  to  their  usefulness.  They 
knew  something  of  agriculture  and  buried  their  dead  with 
great  care,  making  a  chamber  of  flat  stones  in  which  they 
placed  the  body,  and  erecting  over  it  a  pile  of  stones  or 
earth  in  an  elliptic  shape  not  unlike  a  pear  cut  in  half  length- 
wise and  placed  with  its  flat  surface  downwards.  These 
burial  places  are  known  as  long  barrows.  We  can  form 
some  sort  of  an  idea  as  to  the  appearance  of  these  men  by 
an  examination  of  the  remains  found  in  these  barrows. 
They  were  short  in  stature,  not  averaging  more  than  five 


78  The  History  of  Christianity 

feet,  five  inches  in  height,  with  swarthy  complexion  and  black 
curly  hair.  Their  skulls  were  oval,  their  foreheads  low,  and 
their  chins  small.  It  is  not  known  how  long  the  Neolithic 
man  remained  in  undisputed  possession  of  Britain,  but  their 
settlements  were  finally  invaded  by  a  set  of  newcomers  who, 
by  reason  of  their  strength,  numbers,  or  skill,  were  able 
to  drive  out  the  older  race  and  take  possession  of  the  dis- 
tricts which  pleased  them  best.  The  new-comers  were  Celts, 
the  advance-guard  of  a  group  of  nations  which  have  played 
the  most  important  part  in  the  history  of  the  world  and  are 
known  to  ethnologists  as  the  Aryan  family. 

The  Celts  were  light  of  limb  and  tall  of  stature,  having 
an  average  height  of  five  feet,  eight  inches.  To  the  much 
shorter  new-stone  man  the  Celts  would  appear  gigantic. 
They  had  high  foreheads,  prominent  cheek-bones,  and  blue 
eyes.  They  buried  their  dead  with  reverence  and  covered 
the  grave  with  a  barrow  shaped  like  a  cone. 

When  the  van-guard  of  the  Celts  reached  Britain,  they 
had  fairly  completed  the  conquest  of  the  Neolithic  popula- 
tion and  compelled  them  to  evacuate  the  greater  part  of 
Gaul  and  the  Spanish  Peninsula.  During  this  period  the 
Celts  imderwent  a  change  in  civilization.  They  adopted 
weapons  of  bronze  and  in  this  manner  wrought  a  revolution. 
They  not  only  overthrew  their  enemies  with  greater  ease, 
but  made  vast  advancement  in  agriculture. 

After  the  lapse  of  some  time,  a  new  swarm  of  Celts  made 
their  appearance  in  Britain  and  drove  the  older  settlers  be- 
fore them,  just  as  these  had  displaced  the  Neolithic  men. 
This  produced  a  general  westward  movement  of  the  entire 
population.  This  second  Celtic  wave,  known  as  Brithons, 
settled  down  in  the  best  portions  of  the  southern  part  of 
the  island  and  gave  their  name  to  the  whole  land,  while  the 
older  Celtic  stock,  under  the  name  of  Gaels,  passed  into  the 
highlands  of  Scotland  and  across  the  Irish  Sea  into  Ireland. 
The  superiority  of  this  second  band  of  Celtic  invaders  over 
the  preceding  one  was  beyond  a  doubt  due  to  their  knowl- 
edge of  the  use  of  iron.  We  have,  in  this  way,  representa- 
tives of  the  Paleolithic,  the  Neolithic,  the  Bronze,  and  the 
Iron  Ages  in  Britain. 


Caesar's  First  British  Campaign  79 

INIeanwhile,  the  pressure  of  the  Germans  from  across  the 
Rhine  caused  the  Celts  of  Gaul  to  continue  their  westerly 
movement.  The  Belgae,  a  tribe  who  dwelt  between  the  Seine 
and  the  Scheldt,  began  to  send  colonies  across  the  Channel 
and  to  dispossess  the  Brithons.  This  was  the  condition  of 
the  population  of  the  island  when  the  Romans  first  appeared. 

It  is  altogether  probable  that  the  restlessness  of  the  war- 
like Belgae  was  connected  with  the  conquests  that  were  then 
being  made  by  the  Romans  in  southern  Gaul.  In  the  year 
5^5  B.  c,  Julius  Caesar,  the  greatest  of  all  the  Romans  and 
perhaps  the  greatest  man  in  history,  having  completed  the 
conquest  of  Gaul,  stood  a  victor  on  the  southern  shore  of  the 
Straits  of  Dover  and  gazed  across  at  the  white  cliffs  of  Al- 
bion. Caesar  was  ambitious,  not  only  for  himself,  but  for 
Rome,  and  was  consequently  desirous  of  adding  Britain  to 
the  Roman  dominion.  Many  reasons  existed  for  this  con- 
quest. Its  inhabitants  were  bound  to  those  of  Gaul  by  com- 
mon blood  and  religion.  It  would,  in  Caesar's  opinion,  be 
dangerous  to  the  Roman  dominion  in  Gaul  to  have  a  sj^mpa- 
thetic,  powerful,  and  independent  state  so  near  her  own  bor- 
ders, ready  to  give  aid  to  their  kinsmen  across  the  British 
Channel  should  opportunity  arise.  Caesar,  therefore,  de- 
termined to  subdue  these  peoples.  He  sailed  from  Portus 
Itius  with  ten  thousand  foot-soldiers  and  made  his  way  to 
where  the  white  cliffs  of  Dover  could  be  seen  upon  the  hori- 
zon. It  was  with  considerable  difficulty  that  a  landing  was 
effected,  owing  to  the  determined  opposition  of  the  Britons. 
A  portion  of  the  forces  pushed  to  the  shore  and  forced  the 
enemy  to  retreat.  Here  they  formed  camp  and  drew  their 
vessels  high  up  on  the  shore ;  but  the  ships  carrying  Caesar's 
cavalry  were  beaten  back  by  a  severe  storm  and  could  not 
succeed  in  making  a  landing.  The  enemy  rallied  and  at- 
tempted to  carry  Caesar's  camp  by  storm,  but  were  easily 
beaten  back  and,  being  discouraged,  sued  for  peace.  Peace 
was  welcome  to  Caesar,  as  he  had  already  perceived  that  the 
conquest  of  the  island  would  be  impossible  with  so  small  a 
body  of  troops.  He  accepted  the  terms  offered  and  forth- 
with returned  to  Gaul. 

The  following  year,  he  renewed  his  effort  at  conquest  by 


80  The  History  of  Christianity 

landing  on  the  shores  of  Britain  an  army  of  21,000  foot- 
soldiers  and  2000  cavalry.  With  this  army,  he  was  able  to 
overthrow  any  force  the  Britons  might  bring  against  him, 
but  he  really  accomplished  little  or  nothing.  Again  he  made 
peace  with  the  enemy,  having  ordered  hostages  to  be  delivered 
and  having  fixed  the  amount  of  tribute  which  was  to  be  paid 
by  Britannia  to  the  Roman  people,  and  hastened  away  to 
Gaul,  where  rebellion  had  already  broken  out. 

After  this  invasion,  Britain  was  left  in  peace  by  the  Ro- 
mans for  nearly  one  hundred  years,  when  Tiberius  Claudius 
decided  upon  the  subjugation  of  Britain  and  for  the  purpose 
sent  four  legions  of  soldiers  to  that  island  under  the  com- 
mand of  Aulus  Plautius,  a  senator  of  high  rank  and  a  possi- 
ble kinsman  of  Claudius  by  marriage.  This  total  expedition 
numbered  some  50,000  men,  mostly  veterans  who  had  seen 
service  in  the  East  or  in  Africa  and  Spain.  Among  the  of- 
ficers were  the  famous  Vespasian  and  his  son  Titus.  Plau- 
tius landed  his  army  without  difficulty  and  shortly  after- 
wards defeated  the  islanders  in  a  battle  in  which  Togodum- 
nus,  one  of  the  native  kings,  was  killed  and  his  brother  put 
to  flight.  The  victory  resulted  in  the  conquest  of  the  south- 
eastern portion  of  the  island,  from  the  boundaries  of  South 
Wales  to  the  vicinity  of  Lincoln.  Claudius  himself  came 
from  Rome  and  was  present  with  the  army  at  the  capture 
of  the  royal  city  of  Camulodunum  in  43  a.  d.  After  a  six 
months'  absence,  he  returned  to  Rome  and  was  greeted  by 
the  senate  with  the  title,  Britannicus,  in  honor  of  his  victory, 
and  the  same  title  was  bestowed  upon  his  six-year-old  son. 
Aulus  Plautius  returned  to  Rome  in  the  year  47  to  receive 
the  honor  of  an  ovation  and  to  find  his  wife  converted  to 
Christianity.  He  left  the  command  in  Britain  to  Ostorius 
Scapula.  Thus  was  begun  the  real  conquest  of  Britain  by 
the  Romans.  Ostorius  was  followed  by  Suetonius  and  Agri- 
cola  in  turn,  the  latter  being  the  father-in-law  of  the  his- 
torian Tacitus.  Agricola  was  recalled,  in  81,  and  subse- 
quent governors  left  no  record  of  their  achievements. 
Roman  soldiers  remained  in  the  island  for  three  hundred 
years  longer  and  the  buildings  which  they  constructed,  the 
altars  which  they  inscribed,  the  roads  which  they  made,  tell 


Decay  of  Roman  Power  81 

us  something  of  the  life  which  they  led,  but  history  is  almost 
wholly  silent. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  civilization  in  Britain  was 
highly  developed  during  the  Roman  period.  The  Latin  lan- 
guage came  into  use  to  a  ver}'  large  extent,  as  thousands 
of  inscriptions  testify.  The  same  gods  were  worshipped 
here  that  were  worshipped  at  Rome.  Temples  and  altars 
were  dedicated  to  Jupiter  and  other  Roman  deities.  It  is 
probable  that  Christianity  was  introduced  quite  early  into 
Britain,  but  there  are  no  authentic  records,  and  its  influence 
cannot  have  been  very  great  as  there  has  been  discovered 
but  one  Christian  emblem  or  inscription  among  the  Roman 
remains. 

As  time  passed,  the  prosperity  and  good  order  of  the 
empire  fell  away.  Britain,  no  doubt,  felt  and  participated 
in  this  general  decay.  Wealth  and  population  declined  from 
year  to  year.  Taxes  grew  heavier,  as  the  expenses  of  the 
imperial  administration  increased,  while  the  growth  of  pov- 
erty made  it  more  and  more  difficult  to  meet  the  fiscal  de- 
mands. The  frontiers  were  being  broken  over  by  the  bar- 
barian races  and  the  protection  of  the  inhabitants  inade- 
quate, while  the  Roman  armies  were  constantly  engaged  in 
conflicts  with  various  tribes  which  were  trying  to  make  their 
way  into  the  empire.  The  principal  enemies  of  Britain  from 
the  outside  were  Franks  and  Saxons  who  ravaged  the  south- 
east coast  from  the  sea,  the  Scots  from  the  north  of  Ireland 
who  made  frequent  descents  upon  the  northwest  coast,  and 
the  Caledonians  who  still  invaded  the  province  from  the 
north,  notwithstanding  the  great  wall  of  Hadrian.  To  shut 
out  the  Franks  and  Saxons,  the  Romans  built  a  line  of  forts 
along  the  southeastern  coast  and  kept  a  fleet  in  the  Channel. 
The  command  of  these  forts  and  the  fleet  was  intrusted  to  an 
officer  knowTi  as  the  "  Count  of  the  Saxon  Shore  in  Britain  " 
and  this  officer  was  continually  employed  in  beating  off"  in- 
vaders. 

Still,  Britain  had  only  been  partially  conquered  by  the 
Romans  and  had,  through  their  entire  domination,  as  we 
have  seen,  preserved  her  three  peoples  distinct.  North  of 
the  Roman  wall,  where  the  Roman  legions  rarely  penetrated, 


82  The  History  of  Christianity 

were  the  Caledonians,  still  fierce  and  barbarous ;  to  the  south 
and  east,  lay  the  Loegrians  (Brithons),  who  had  submitted 
to  Roman  civilization  and  had  received  Christianity ;  west- 
ward beyond  the  Severn,  were  the  Cambrians  or  Welsh,  a 
people  unconquerable  in  their  mountain  fastnesses.  To  this 
latter  people  belonged  the  famous  Arthur  of  Celtic  legend 
who  slew  four  hundred  of  the  enemy  (our  people)  in  a  single 
day;  a  poet's  fancy,  nothing  more,  and  if  it  were  true  it 
would  only  serve  to  illustrate  the  staying  qualities  of  our 
ancestors,  who,  having  once  set  foot  upon  a  shore,  shrank 
not  from  the  price,  nor  hesitated,  nor  halted,  nor  turned 
back,  till  they  made  it  their  own. 

When  the  Roman  legions  which  guarded  the  frontiers  of 
Britain  and  the  Saxon  coast  were  called  home  to  defend  the 
Eternal  City  in  her  dying  struggle  Avith  the  Vandal,  Ostro- 
goth, and  Hun,  the  Caledonian  and  Cambrian  rushed  down 
from  their  wild  and  rocky  homes  and  hastened  to  lay  waste 
the  fertile  valleys  which  the  Romanized  Celt  was  utterly  un- 
able to  protect.  Against  these  barbarians  from  the  north 
and  west,  the  civilized  Loegrian  finally  summoned,  if  we  may 
believe  the  story,  the  still  more  barbarous  and  cruel  Jutes 
from  beyond  the  Channel,  with  the  promise  of  the  Isle  of 
Thanet  off  the  coast  of  Kent  as  pay  for  their  services.  They 
came,  in  449,  under  their  chiefs,  Hengest  and  Horsa,  and 
landed  upon  the  Isle  of  Thanet,  "  the  gift-land,"  at  a  spot 
now  known  as  Ebbsfleet,  and  with  this  landing  English  his- 
tory begins.  "  No  spot  can  be  so  sacred  to  Englishmen  as 
the  spot  which  first  felt  the  tread  of  English  feet.  There  is 
little  to  catch  the  eye  in  Ebbsfleet  itself,  a  mere  lift  of  ground 
with  a  few  gray  cottages  dotted  over  it,  cut  off  now-a-days 
from  the  sea  by  a  reclaimed  meadow  and  a  sea-wall."  But 
taken  as  a  whole  the  scene  has  a  wild  beauty  of  its  own.  To 
the  right  the  white  curve  of  Ramsgate  cliffs  looks  down  on 
the  crescent  of  Pegwell  Bay;  far  away  to  the  left  across 
grey  marsh-levels  where  smoke-wreaths  mark  the  site  of  Rich- 
borough  and  Sandwich,  the  coast-line  trends  dimly  toward 
Deal.  Everything  in  the  character  of  the  spot  confirm  the 
national  tradition  which  fixed  here  the  landing  place  of  our 
fathers.      "  The  task  for  which  this  warrior  band  has  been 


Kentish  Kingdom  Founded  83 

hired  was  quickly  done,  the  Picts  being  thoroughly  defeated 
and  scattered  to  the  winds  in  a  battle  fought  on  the  eastern 
coast  of  Britain.  And  now  there  awaited  for  Britain  the 
same  fate  that  had  overtaken  Rome  and  Persia  and  Syria, 
and  which  awaits,  indeed,  every  nation  whose  sword  arm  has 
become  nerveless  and  which  calls  on  foreigners  to  fight  its 
battles.  This  "  nest  of  pirates  "  in  Thanet  was  quickly 
reinforced  by  a  great  army  of  their  friends  who  joined  them 
from  their  old  home.  Thus  reinforced  and  finding  their 
quarters  too  narrow,  they  turned  their  arms  against  their 
late  allies  and  drove  them  in  terror  from  their  homes. 
Northern  Kent  was  quickl}'  conquered  and  taken  possession 
of  by  the  families  and  relatives  of  the  invaders  which  were 
brought  over  froii^  Thanet  or  their  old  home  in  Jutland. 
They  established  their  capital  at  Canterbury  in  455. 
Horsa  having  fallen  in  battle,  Hengest  was  recognized  as 
king  and  pushed  his  conquests  towards  the  south  where  the 
Britons  still  bravely  held  their  ground.  By  475,  he  had 
overcome  all  opposition  and  subdued  under  its  sway  the  ter- 
ritory of  the  Ancient  Cantii,  that  peninsula  lying  between 
the  Channel  and  the  Thames. 

And  now  commenced  on  the  part  of  the  Saxons  a  struggle 
for  the  possession  of  the  whole  island.  In  4T7,  Saxon  in- 
vaders were  seen  pushing  slowly  along  the  strip  of  land  which 
lay  to  the  west  of  Kent  between  the  great  forest  Andraeds- 
weald  and  the  sea.  This  southern  coast  was  guarded  by  a 
fortress  which  occupied  the  spot  now  called  Pevensejs  then 
known  by  the  name  of  Anderida.  This  fort  was  beset  by  a 
band  of  Saxons  under  their  leader,  Aelle,  and  taken  by  storm. 
The  old  chronicle  reads  as  follows :  "  Aelle  and  Cissa  beset 
Anderida  and  slew  all  that  were  therein,  nor  was  there  after- 
wards one  Briton  left."  The  destruction  of  this  fort  led 
quickly  to  the  conquest  of  the  surrounding  territory,  and 
the  establishment  of  the  little  kingdom  of  Sussex  with  the 
royal  residence  at  Chichester,  in  491.  But  this  little  Saxon 
kingdom  occupied  only  a  small  portion  of  the  southern  part 
of  Britain.  The  real  conquest  of  this  territory  remained  to 
be  accomplished  by  a  fresh  band  of  Saxons  under  the  leader- 
ship of  the  famous  Cerdic  and  Cymric.     They  landed  upon 


Sis  The  History  of  Christianity 

the  shores  of  Southampton  Water  in  495,  and  pushed  across 
the  Gwent  to  Winchester.  By  a  decisive  victory  at  Char- 
ford,  the  hot  contest  for  the  possession  of  this  territory  came 
to  an  end,  in  519.  During  this  quarter  of  a  century  of 
struggle  Cymric  died  and  Cerdic  was  aised  to  the  dignity  of 
a  king.  The  conquest  of  the  Gwent  having  been  completed, 
Cerdic  established  his  capital  at  Winchester  which  was  thus 
destined  to  become  famous  in  the  annals  of  English  history. 
Only  a  year  after  the  battle  of  Charford,  the  Britons  rallied 
under  a  new  leader,  the  famous  Arthur,  and  drove  the  in- 
vaders out  of  Dorsetshire  woodlands  after  having  overthrown 
them  at  Badbury.  After  a  long  hard  struggle  for  suprem- 
acy west  of  the  Severn,  which  seemed  to  have  had  but  a  sorry 
outcome,  the  Saxons  turned  eastward  from  Colchester,  and 
founded  another  kingdom,  Sussex,  with  the  capital  at  London 
on  the  Thames,  thus  making  in  all  four  Saxon  kingdoms. 

But  the  people  who  gave  the  name  to  the  whole  race  of 
conquerors  had  not  yet  arrived.  By  the  middle  of  the  sixth 
century  only  the  outskirts  of  Britain  had  been  won.  "  From 
London  to  St.  David's  Head,  from  the  Andredsweald  to  the 
Firth  of  Forth  the  country  still  remained  unconquered;  and 
there  was  little  in  the  years  which  followed  Arthur's  triumph 
to  herald  that  onset  of  the  invaders  which  was  soon  to  make 
Britain  England.  Till  now  its  assailants  had  been  drawn 
from  two  only  of  the  three  tribes  whom  we  saw  dwelling  by 
the  northern  sea,  from  the  Saxons  and  the  Jutes.  But  the 
main  work  of  conquest  was  to  be  done  by  the  third,  by  the 
tribe  which  bore  that  name  of  Engle  or  Englishmen  which 
was  to  absorb  that  of  Saxon  and  Jute  and  to  stamp  itself  on 
the  people  which  sprang  from  the  union  of  the  conquerors 
as  on  the  land  that  they  won."  In  547,  the  Angles  made 
their  appearance.  They  probably  first  entered  by  the  estu- 
ary which  is  known  as  the  Humber  and  spread  northward. 
Under  their  king,  Aella,  they  conquered  and  took  possession 
of  York  and  the  region  which  is  called  Northumberland, 
reaching  as  far  northward  as  the  Firth  of  Forth  and  em- 
bracing the  old  Roman  provinces  of  Bemicia  and  Deira. 
Still  others  passed  south  of  the  Humber  and  followed  the  line 
of  the  Trent  westward  to  its  headwaters.     They  established 


Conquest  of  the  West  Saxons  and  Angles  85 

their  capital  at  Lincoln,  584.  They  later  became  known  as 
Mercians,  or  "  Men  of  the  March."  Still  others  pushed 
southward  and  established  two  communities  of  their  people 
known  as  the  North-Folk  and  the  South-Folk.  A  little  later 
these  communities  united  into  the  kingdom  of  East  Anglia 
with  its  capital  at  Norwich  (571). 

After  the  West  Saxons  were  defeated  at  Badbury,  in  521, 
they  remained  in  something  like  peace  for  a  period  of  more 
than  forty  years,  when  they  were  again  aroused  into  activity 
by  the  movement  of  the  Angles  in  the  north  and  west. 
Under  their  king,  Ceawlin,  they  overthrew  the  Meanwara 
and  added  their  territory  to  their  own.  They  then  appeared 
in  the  valley  of  the  Severn  and  gradually  drove  the  Britons 
out  of  the  surrounding  country.  In  577,  they  won  the  de- 
cisive battle  of  Deorham,  thus  completing  the  conquest  of  the 
Severn  valley,  and  captured  the  old  Roman  cities  of  Bath  and 
Gloucester,  leaving  them  heaps  of  blackened  ruins.  They 
then  took  possession  of  the  conquered  territory  and  extended 
their  settlements  over  Gloucestershire  and  Worcestershire, 
making  this  whole  territory  permanently  Saxon.  This  new 
conquest  cut  off  the  Britons  of  the  southwest  from  their  kins- 
men in  the  north  and  rendered  their  overthrow  certain. 

While  the  west  Saxons  were  thus  pushing  their  conquests 
to  the  west  and  south,  the  Angles  of  Northumberland  were 
not  idle.  An  army  of  Scots,  Picts  and  Britons,  under  the 
leadership  of  the  Scotch  king  Idam,  now  attempted  the  over- 
throw of  the  Bemicians,  marching  into  that  territory  and 
laying  waste  the  borderlands.  The  Angles  of  Bernicia  and 
Deira  hastened  to  meet  the  confederated  army  of  the  Scotch 
king  under  their  leader,  Ethelfrid.  The  two  forces  joined 
battle  at  Dawstone  near  Carlisle  where  the  Scots  were  de- 
feated with  great  slaughter  and  were  forced  to  give  up  all 
further  attempts  upon  the  lands  of  the  Bernicians.  In  613, 
ten  years  after  the  battle  of  Dawstone,  Ethelfrid  won  a  sec- 
ond victory  over  the  western  Britons  under  the  walls  of 
Chester.  The  city  was  taken  by  the  victorious  Angles, 
sacked,  and  left  in  ruins.  This  victory  gave  to  the  Angles  of 
Northumberland  the  possession  of  all  lands  between  Leeds 
and  the  Irish  Sea,  and  in  addition  separated  the  Britons  of 


86  The  History  of  Christianity 

Strathclyde  from  the  Cambrians,  pushing  in  between  them  a 
wedge  of  Angles.  With  the  battles  of  Deorham  and  Chester 
the  era  of  conquest  and  settlement  of  Britain  ends.  The 
fertile  lands  of  the  old  Roman  provinces  were  now  in  the  pos- 
session of  the  Germanic  invaders.  By  the  close  of  the  sixth 
century  the  Teutons  had  thoroughly  established  themselves 
in  Britain. 

These  seven  little  barbarian  kingdoms  now  ocupied  the  soil 
which  the  Romans  had  held  for  nearly  four  hundred  years, 
and  by  a  very  slow  process  were  finally  consolidated  into  one 
kingdom.  A  careful  study  of  this  conquest  will  show  that  it 
differed  radically  from  those  made  beyond  the  Danube  and 
the  Rhine  by  other  Germanic  peoples.  Caledonia  was  not 
conquered  by  the  Saxon  invaders,  while  to  the  west  the  Cam- 
brians of  Strathclyde  and  of  West  and  South  Wales  retained 
their  independence  and  carried  on  a  ceaseless  warfare.  The 
Saxons  thus  kept  their  wonted  surroundings.  They  had,  as 
of  yore,  sturdy  enemies  to  fight  and  so  were  compelled  to 
keep  up  their  martial  training.  In  this  they  differed  from 
the  other  conquerors  whose  history  has  been  traced.  With 
each  of  these  the  struggle  was  a  brief  one,  practically  settled 
by  a  single  battle,  and  a  people  used  to  a  life  of  war  and 
exposure  had  peace  and  unwonted  luxury  suddenly  thrust 
upon  them.  But  in  another  respect  the  contrast  is  still  more 
striking.  The  Visigoth,  Vandal,  Ostrogoth,  Lombard  and 
Frank,  each  and  all  settled  to  a  life  of  peace  among  a  con- 
quered and  subject  population  vastly  outnumbering  and,  in 
the  arts  of  civilization,  infinitely  superior  to  themselves.  In 
this  way  they  quickly  lost  not  only  their  own  barbarism  but, 
very  largely,  their  language,  institutions,  and  laws,  while 
those  of  the  conquered  people  they  absorbed  too  rapidly  for 
a  healthful  assimilation.  The  Saxons,  on  the  other  hand, 
swept  the  ground  clean  either  by  totally  destroying  or  driv- 
ing out  into  the  mountains  to  the  west  and  north  the  van- 
quished Celts.  They  thus  brought  their  families  into  an  un- 
inhabited land  and  so  continued  in  purity  their  old-time  man- 
ner of  life.  In  this  way,  of  all  the  Germans  who  passed 
the  Roman  frontier,  the  Saxons  alone  kept  their  wonted  sur- 
roundings   and   suffered   none   of   the   enervating   effects    of 


Early  Paganism  87 

change  of  climate  and  of  environment.  Their  development 
was  much  slower  for  this  very  reason,  but  it  was  along  the 
line  of  their  national  institutions,  and,  if  slow,  it  was  whole- 
some and  continuous.  As  this  story  progresses  it  will  be- 
come apparent  that  all  the  best  things  in  modem  civilization 
we  owe  to  this  isolation  and  consequent  pure  and  untram- 
melled development  of  Germanic  life. 

None  of  the  Germans  who  invaded  Britain  had  been  con- 
verted to  Christianity  prior  to  their  migration  and  settle- 
ment, while  the  struggle  with  the  Celts  was  so  long  and  bitter 
and  the  hatred  engendered  so  intense,  that  no  effort  had  been 
put  forth  to  Christianize  them  by  the  people  whom  they  had 
despoiled  of  their  homes  and  driven  with  slaughter  and  cru- 
elty to  the  mountains  in  the  west.  In  fact,  the  Celts  took  a 
sort  of  grim  pleasure  in  the  contemplation  of  their  lost 
condition  and  their  consequent  punishment  at  the  hands  of 
an  offended  and  angry  God.  One  hundred  and  fifty  years 
had  gone  by  since  the  landing  of  Hengest  and  Horsa  upon 
the  Isle  of  Thanet,  yet  the  descendants  of  the  men  who  so 
eagerly  followed  them  in  their  despoiling  of  the  Celt,  still 
worshipped  Woden  and  peopled  every  nook  and  valley  with 
nixies ;  still  looked  for  the  true  warrior's  reward  in  a  heaven 
where  strife  and  drinking  were  to  be  without  end. 

By  reason  of  the  separate  and  independent  settlement  of 
the  various  tribes  of  Angles  and  Saxons,  and  the  lack  of  any 
unity  in  their  struggle  for  the  possession  of  the  island,  the 
tribes  which  settled  in  the  south  and  east  were  quickly  cut 
off  from  the  extension  of  their  boundaries,  by  reason  of  other 
tribes  pushing  into  their  rear.  Thus  it  was  that  Kent  found 
it  impossible  to  expand  by  conquest  to  the  west  and  south 
because  the  West  Saxons  and  South  Saxons  had  pushed  in 
between  her  and  the  Britons.  Norfolk  and  Suffolk  suffered 
in  like  manner.  The  Northumbrians  were  not  so  hemmed  in 
but  pushed  their  conquest  to  the  north  and  west;  the  Mer- 
cians of  Mid-Britain  continued  the  struggle  for  supremacy 
against  the  Cambrians  of  North  Wales ;  the  West  Saxons 
conquered  the  valley  of  the  Severn  and,  by  the  battle  of 
Deorham,  nearly  doubled  their  territory  to  the  north  and 
west.     Not  long  after  this  battle  which  gave  the  Severn  and 


88  The  History  of  Christianity 

the  territory  east  of  it  to  the  West  Saxons,  Ceawlin  and  his 
victorious  followers  suffered  a  disastrous  defeat  near  Chester 
and  their  career  of  conquest  came  to  an  end.  The  federa- 
tion of  the  southern  and  eastern  tribes  now  broke  up  and 
even  the  separate  families  of  the  West  Saxons  began  to  quar- 
rel among  themselves.  In  the  meantime  Ethelbert  became 
king  of  Kent.  He  was  an  ambitious  and  powerful  man  and, 
when  he  perceived  the  impossibility  of  extending  his  rule 
against  the  Britons,  decided  to  make  himself  the  overlord  of 
all  the  minor  tribes  which  had  heretofore  recognized  the 
headship  of  Ceawlin.  The  break-up  of  Wessex  made  this 
possible.  We  know  little  of  the  causes  which  led  to  this  new 
movement  or  the  process  by  which  Ethelbert  obtained  su- 
premacy ;  but  we  do  know  that  before  his  death  his  overlord- 
ship  was  recognized  in  Norfolk,  Suffolk,  Sussex,  and  by  the 
warring  tribes  of  the  West  Saxons.  About  the  time  that 
Ethelbert  had  reached  the  height  of  his  power  he  was  con- 
verted to  Christianity  in  much  the  same  way  as  many  bar- 
barian kings  had  been  before  him.  In  597,  he  was  married 
to  a  Christian  princess,  Bertha,  the  granddaughter  of  Clo- 
tair  the  Great,  king  of  the  Franks.  The  men  of  the  Frank- 
ish  royal  house  were  as  a  class  but  little  influenced  b^^  Chris- 
tianity, their  barbarian  instincts  being  stronger  than  the 
Christian  veneering  which  they  had  received ;  but  the  women 
frequently  furnished  examples  of  sweet  and  noble  piety  and 
honored  the  name  of  Christ  by  living  blameless  and  pure  lives 
and  leaving  behind  them  the  memory  of  good  deeds.  Such  a 
woman  was  Bertha  who  now  went  to  take  up  her  residence  in 
the  Kentish  home  of  her  barbarian  husband.  Gregory  the 
Great  was  at  this  time  pope  of  Rome.  He  had  long  been 
fired  with  an  ambition  for  the  conversion  of  the  heathen  king- 
doms of  Britain.  The  story  of  his  meeting  with  the  Angle 
captives  in  the  slave  market  of  Rome  is  a  familiar  one. 
Their  white  bodies  and  fair  faces  and  golden  hair  attracted 
his  attention.  He  asked  the  trader,  "  From  what  country  do 
these  slaves  come.?  "  The  slave  dealer  answered,  "  They  are 
Angles."  Gregory  responded,  "  Not  Angles  but  Angels, 
with  faces  so  angel-like !  From  what  country  come  they  ?  " 
"  They  come,"  said  the  dealer,  "  from  Deira.'     "  De  ira!  " 


Augustine  and  His  Monks  89 

Gregory  replied,  "  plucked  from  God's  ire  and  called  to 
Christ's  mercy !  And  what  is  the  name  of  their  king?  " 
"  Aella,"  was  the  reply.  "  Alleluia  shall  be  sung  in  Aella's 
land,"  said  the  good  deacon  as  he  passed  on  his  way.  This 
story  was  related  of  Gregory  while  he  was  yet  a  deacon. 
Since  then  circumstances  had  conspired  to  raise  him  to  the 
papacy  and  he  now  determined  to  carry  out  his  dream  of 
winning  Britain  to  the  faith.  When  Bertha  went  to  Kent 
she  took  with  her  a  Christian  bishop  and  a  ruined  Christian 
church  hard  by  the  royal  city  of  Canterbury  was  repaired 
and  given  over  to  them  for  their  worship.  The  king  allowed 
her  freedom  to  worship  as  she  chose  although  he  himself  re- 
mained for  a  time  true  to  the  gods  of  his  ancestors.  Gregory 
now  sent  Augustine  at  the  head  of  a  band  of  monks  to  preach 
the  gospel  to  the  English  people.  This  band  of  missionaries 
landed  in  597  in  the  Isle  of  Thanet,  "  at  the  very  spot  where 
Hcngest  and  Horsa  had  landed  more  than  a  century  before ; 
and  Ethclbert  received  them  sitting  in  the  open  air  on  the 
chalk-down  above  minster  where  the  eye  now-a-days  catches 
miles  away  over  the  marshes  the  dim  tower  of  Canterbury. 
The  king  listened  patiently  to  the  long  sermon  of  Augustine 
as  the  interpreters  the  abbot  had  brought  with  him  from 
Gaul  rendered  it  in  English  tongue.  '  Your  words  are  fair,' 
Ethelbert  replied  at  last  with  English  good  sense,  '  but  they 
are  new  and  of  doubtful  meaning.'  For  himself,  he  said,  he 
refused  to  forsake  the  gods  of  his  fathers,  but  with  the  usual 
religious  tolerance  of  the  German  race  he  promised  shelter 
and  protection  to  the  strangers."  It  was  in  this  manner 
that  the  spot  which  had  witnessed  the  landing  of  Hengest 
one  hundred  and  fifty-eight  years  before  now  became  still 
better  known  by  the  landing  of  Augustine.  He  brought 
back  with  him  not  only  Christianity  but  the  civilization,  art, 
and  letters  which  had  fled  before  the  sword  of  the  English 
conquerors  and  which  had  remained  in  cowardly  retreat  all 
these  years.  During  the  course  of  a  year  Ethelbert  yielded 
to  the  effort  of  Augustine  and  his  missionaries.  The  Kent- 
ish men  thought  that  what  was  good  enough  for  their  king 
was  good  enough  for  them  and  crowded  to  Christian  bap- 
tism.    In  this  manner  all  of  Kent  was  Christianized  and  be- 


90  The  History  of  Christianity 

came  a  center  for  the  dispensation  of  the  new  rehgion.  In 
601,  Gregory  sent  to  Augustine  the  archiepiscopal  pallium 
with  a  complete  plan  for  the  organization  of  the  whole  island. 
The  Bishop  of  Rome  seemed  to  be  ignorant  of  the  various 
heathen  kingdoms  in  Britain,  but  deemed  them  all  Angles 
under  one  king.  The  entire  island  was  by  him  divided  into 
two  nearly  equal  parts  or  metropolitan  sees,  each  having 
twelve  bishops.  The  archbishop  of  the  northern  district  was 
to  be  established  at  York,  while  the  primate  of  the  southern 
was  to  be  at  London.  But  London  was  not  yet  Christianized 
and  Augustine  chose  Canterbury  instead  for  his  residence,  as 
it  was  under  the  protection  of  Ethelbert.  Knowing  the  con- 
dition in  the  island  much  better  than  the  pope,  he  left  the 
organization  of  the  northern  province  and  the  appointment 
of  the  twenty-four  bishops  to  the  future,  as  neither  East 
Saxons,  South  Saxons  nor  West  Saxons  were  ready  as  yet 
to  receive  Christian  teachers.  But  Augustine  was  not  con- 
tented with  the  conversion  and  baptism  of  the  king  and  his 
people.  He  brought  with  him  into  the  island  a  knowledge 
of  the  ways  and  arts  of  the  civilized  world,  and  he  immedi- 
ately proceeded  to  teach  these  to  his  new  converts.  It  was 
through  his  influence  that  the  customary  laws  of  the  people 
of  Kent  were  reduced  to  writing  and  drawn  up  in  the  form 
of  a  code.  This  is  "  the  first  formal  record  of  the  laws  of 
an  English  people,"  preceding  by  more  than  ninety  years 
the  like  record  which  Ine  made  of  the  laws  of  the  West 
Saxons.  It  is  from  this  code  that  we  obtain  almost  all  of 
our  knowledge  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  institutions  as  they  ex- 
isted at  the  close  of  the  period  of  conquest  and  settlement. 
They  remind  us  of  the  descriptions  given  by  Tacitus  of  the 
Germans  who  lived  on  the  borders  of  the  empire  in  the  first 
century  of  the  Christian  Era,  and  they  show  that  the  Ger- 
mans of  Britain  had  not  yet  advanced  very  far  beyond  the 
condition  of  those  who  were  first  known  to  the  Romans.  The 
only  penalties  provided  by  the  laws  of  Ethelbert  were  fines, 
or  indemnities,  covering  almost  every  conceivable  injury  to 
life  or  limb  or  property,  and  varying  from  the  ordinary  in- 
demnities prescribed  for  the  wrongs  of  a  freeman  to  the 
ninefold  penalty  prescribed   for  injury  to  the  king  or  his 


Conversion  of  Essex  and  East  Anglia  91 

property;  the  elevenfold  penalty  prescribed  for  injury  to  a 
bishop,  and  the  twelvefold  penalty  prescribed  in  the  case  of 
him  who  destroyed  the  "  goods  of  God."  This  plainly  re- 
veals the  influence  of  the  priest,  and  the  high  estate  which 
had  already  been  won  by  the  church. 

In  604),  Ethelbert  put  forth  a  vigorous  effort  to  convert 
to  his  own  faith  the  sub-kingdoms  which  were  subject  to  his 
rule.  Mellitus,  one  of  the  missionaries  that  accompanied 
Augustine,  was  sent  to  preach  to  the  East  Saxons.  He  was 
very  successful  in  this  mission  and  within  the  year  Sebert, 
the  king,  and  all  his  people  were  converted  and  brought  into 
the  fold.  Thus  it  was  that  Essex  hke  Kent  became  Chris- 
tian. This  conversion,  however,  was  shallow  in  its  nature, 
like  that  of  all  the  Germanic  barbarians,  and,  in  616,  the 
East  Saxons  lapsed  again  into  heathenism,  being  led  astray 
by  their  new  king,  Redwald.  It  was  not  until  653  that  they 
were  permanently  converted  to  Christianity,  having  received 
the  faith  anew  through  the  preaching  of  the  Celtic  mission- 
ary, Cedd,  who  was  sent  among  them  by  Oswy,  the  king  of 
Deira. 

East  Anglia  was  under  the  overlordship  of  Ethelbert  and 
missionaries  undertook  the  conversion  of  this  kingdom  in 
accordance  with  the  plan  of  that  king,  during  the  same  year 
that  Mellitus  succeeded  in  converting  the  East  Saxons. 
Redwald,  the  king  of  East  AngHa,  decided  to  add  Christ  to 
the  number  of  his  gods,  and  his  people  joined  him  in  this 
mixed  Christian  idea.  He  set  up  in  a  church  an  altar  to 
Christ  and  another  to  Woden.  In  616,  Redwald  obtained 
the  overlordship  which  Ethelbert  had  exercised  up  to  the 
time  of  his  death.  He  immediately  rejected  Christianity  as 
he  was  dissatisfied  with  the  aid  he  had  received  from  that 
source,  and  his  people  went  with  him.  The  East  Anglians 
thus  remained  heathen  until  they  were  converted  by  the  ef- 
forts of  a  Burgundian  priest  named  Felix.  This  priest  ar- 
rived in  627  and  succeeded  within  the  year  in  bringing  the 
East  Anglians  into  the  fold  of  the  church.  He  was  made 
bishop  of  this  province  and  had  his  seat  at  Dunwich,  a  village 
which  was  afterwards  overwhelmed  by  the  sea  and  the  site  of 
which  is  lost. 


92  The  History  of  Christianity 

The  rival  royal  houses  of  Bernicia  and  Deira  engaged  in 
a  long  struggle  for  supremacy  oA^er  all  the  territory  north 
of  the  Humber.  In  this  the  Bernician  Ethelric  first  suc- 
ceeded. He  not  only  united  these  two  kingdoms  into  the 
new  one  of  Northumbria,  but  succeeded  in  passing  his  power 
over  to  his  able  and  valiant  son,  Ethelfrid,  who  succeeded 
to  the  joint  rule  in  593.  We  have  seen  how  he  overthrew 
the  combined  forces  of  the  Scots,  Picts,  and  Britons  at  Daw- 
stone,  in  593,  and  forever  broke  the  power  of  the  Britons 
under  the  walls  of  Chester  ten  years  later.  He  was  himself 
overthrown  in  the  battle  of  Retford  in  Nottinghamshire,  617, 
by  the  East  Anglian  Confederation  under  the  leadership  of 
Redwald.  This  defeat  did  not  break  up  the  union  of  Ber- 
nicia and  Deira,  as  might  be  supposed,  but  instead  passed 
the  joint  rule  to  Edwin,  an  exiled  prince  of  Deira,  and  de- 
scendant of  Aella.  Ethelfrid  had  recognized  the  dangerous 
rivalry  of  this  prince  and  pursued  him  with  unusual  harsh- 
ness. It  was  his  demand  from  Redwald  of  this  distinguished 
exile  that  had  brought  on  the  war  that  resulted  in  Ethelfrid's 
death.  Edwin  not  only  made  good  his  authority  in  North- 
umbria, but  extended  his  rule  by  the  conquest  of  the  Isle  of 
Man  and  Angelsey.  He  also  made  himself  overlord  of  East 
Anglia  and  all  the  southern  kingdoms  except  Kent.  He 
next  looked  about  him  for  a  worthy  consort  and  found  her 
in  Ethelburga,  the  daughter  of  Bertha  and  Ethelbert  of 
Kent.  This  beautiful  woman  had  the  same  task  to  perform 
which  had  been  the  lot  of  her  Christian  mother  for  her  hus- 
band was  still  a  heathen  and  held  out  strongly  for  the  old 
faith.  He  finally  decided,  however,  at  the  instigation  of  his 
wife,  to  refer  the  matter  to  his  witan,  and  when  this  body  of 
wise  men  was  assembled,  Paulinus,  his  wife's  chaplain,  made 
a  strong  plea  for  Christianity  which  seems  to  have  melted 
the  hearts  of  the  grim  old  warriors.  When  he  had  ended, 
an  aged  ealdorman  arose  and  made  the  following  speech, 
which  may  well  stand  as  a  model  of  beauty  and  simplicity : 
"  So  seems  the  life  of  man,  O  king,  as  a  sparrow's  flight 
through  the  hall  when  one  is  sitting  at  meat  in  winter-tide, 
with  the  warm  fire  lighted  on  the  hearth,  but  the  icy  rain- 
storm without.     The  sparrow  flies  in  at  one  door,  and  tar- 


Paganism  Under  Penda  93 

ries  for  a  moment  in  the  light  and  heat  of  the  hearth-fire,  and 
then,  flying  forth  from  the  other,  vanishes  into  the  darkness 
whence  it  came.  So  tarries  for  a  moment  the  life  of  man 
in  our  sight ;  but  what  is  before  it,  what  after  it,  we  know 
not.  If  this  new  teaching  tell  us  aught  certainly  of  these, 
let  us  follow  it."  This  speech,  together  with  that  of  the 
king's  priest  who  denounced  the  gods  whom  he  had  served 
and  asked  permission  himself  to  set  fire  to  the  pagan  temple 
at  Godmundham,  decided  the  king.  He  asked  for  baptism 
and  was  admitted  into  the  Christian  Church  on  Easter  Day, 
April  12,  627.  The  conversion  of  the  people  went  on  rap- 
idly. York  was  made  an  archiepiscopal  see  and  Paulinus 
was  established  as  its  first  archbishop.  The  chronicle  re- 
cords in  glowing  terms  the  peace  and  security  which  reigned 
throughout  the  whole  territory  during  Edwin's  reign  and 
states  that  "  A  woman  with  her  child  could  journey  from  the 
Humber  to  the  Firth  of  Forth  without  being  molested." 

But  paganism  was  not  to  be  destroyed  without  a  struggle. 
The  spirit  of  the  old  Saxon  Avas  too  conservative  for  that, 
Penda,  the  powerful  king  of  the  Mercians  or  Englishmen  of 
Mid-Britain,  took  up  the  cause  of  the  abandoned  gods  and, 
in  the  battle  of  Hatfield,  some  twenty  miles  to  the  south  of 
York,  overthrew  the  Northumbrian  forces  and  slew  Edwin, 
their  king,  in  633.  When  Edwin  fell,  Paulinus  fled  to  Kent, 
taking  with  him  Ethelburga  and  her  two  young  children,  and 
with  this  flight  the  efi'ort  of  the  church  to  Christianize  the 
North  for  a  time  came  to  an  end.  Revived  paganism  flour- 
ished anew.  Penda  did  not  attempt,  after  his  victory,  to 
add  Northumbria  to  his  own  kingdom  but  merely  revived  the 
old-time  division  between  Bernicia  and  Deira.  Bernicia 
seized  upon  this  opportunity  to  recall  the  line  of  Ethelfrid, 
whose  children  had  been  in  banishment  on  the  Isle  of  lona 
during  the  reign  of  Edwin.  The  second  of  his  sons,  Oswald, 
was  now  made  king  and  immediately  engaged  in  a  struggle 
to  reestablish  the  power  of  Northumbria.  He  first  engaged 
in  battle  with  Cadwallon,  a  Celtic  king  who  had  united  his 
forces  with  Penda  in  the  overthrow  of  Edwin,  and  had  since 
remained  in  camp  in  the  north  country.  Cadwallon  was  de- 
feated and  slain  in  battle  on  "  Heaven's  field,"  the  name  aft- 


94  The  History  of  Christianity 

erwards  given  to  the  place,  because  of  the  fact  that  the 
Bernicians  had  promised  Oswald  to  accept  Christianity  in 
case  they  won  the  battle.  Deira  was  now  again  united  to 
Bernicia  and  the  kingdom  of  Northumbria  was  restored  to 
full  power.  However,  the  Christianity  which  the  Bernicians 
received  was  not  that  of  Paulinus  and  the  Church  of  Rome, 
for  no  sooner  had  Oswald  succeeded  in  reestablishing  the 
kingdom  of  Northumbria  than  Irish  monks  from  Hii  (lona) 
came  full  of  zeal  for  the  conversion  of  his  realm.  In  635 
Aidan  fixed  his  bishop's  stool  in  the  Isle  of  Lindisfarne,  on 
the  coast  of  Northumbria,  where  there  quickly  grew  up  a 
famous  monastery.  Through  the  efforts  of  these  Irish  mis- 
sionaries Northumbria  became  permanently  Christian. 

In  the  very  year  in  which  the  Celtic  Aiden  established  his 
see  in  the  Isle  of  Lindisfarne  the  conversion  of  the  West 
Saxons  was  brought  about.  This  was  accomplished  by  the 
preaching  of  a  Lombard  priest,  Birinus  by  name,  who  had 
found  his  way  into  Wessex  from  northern  Italy.  The  task 
of  converting  the  West  Saxons  seemed  to  be  an  easj'^  one, 
perhaps  because  they  were  under  the  influence  of  Christian 
Kent,  and  here  there  took  place  no  lapse  into  paganism  as  was 
the  case  in  Essex,  East  Anglia,  and  Northumbria. 

When  Penda  overthrew  the  Northumbrian  king  at  Hat- 
field, it  looked  for  a  moment  as  if  Christianity  in  the  north 
was  doomed.  This  sturdy  old  barbarian  continued  to  har- 
ass and  ravage  East  Anglia  and  Deira  during  the  time  that 
Oswald  was  reestablishing  the  kingdom  of  Bernicia.  His  in- 
fluence caused  the  newl}'^  converted  king  of  Wessex  to  eschew 
Christianity  and  to  join  his  forces  with  the  Mercians.  Os- 
wald remained  the  champion  of  the  Cross,  and  his  short  reign 
was  one  continuous  battle.  His  doom  was  finally  the  same 
as  that  of  Edwin,  for  he  was  overthrown  and  slain  in  bat- 
tle with  Penda  at  Maserfield  in  642.  Heathenism  again  tri- 
umphed, but  Oswy,  the  younger  brother  of  Oswald,  came 
from  his  retirement  at  lona  and  took  up  the  task  in  the  car- 
rying on  of  which  his  brother  had  lost  his  life.  He  proved 
himself  a  very  able  prince  and,  while  he  struggled  manfully 
to  save  his  kingdom,  he  contended  with  no  less  vigor  for  the 
Christian  cause  which  he  had  espoused.     The  struggle  went 


Conversion  of  Mercia  and  Sussex  95 

on  with  doubtful  issues  until  655,  when  it  closed  in  one  last 
and  bloody  battle  at  Winwaed,  hard  by  Leeds.  Here  Penda, 
now  eighty  years  old,  led  on  the  sturdy  forces  of  paganism. 
Oswy  and  his  Northumbrian  Christians  were  driven  to  the 
last  extremity  and  were  forced  to  fight  for  their  lives.  Vic- 
tory at  last  declared  in  their  favor ;  Penda  himself  fell  on 
the  field,  while  the  river  over  which  the  Mercians  fled  was 
swollen  with  a  great  flood  of  rain  and  swept  away  a  large 
portion  of  those  that  escaped  the  sword.  Here  the  cause 
of  the  older  gods  was  lost  forever.  The  terrible  struggle 
was  followed  by  a  long  and  profound  peace.  Before  the 
death  of  Penda,  Christianity  had  made  inroads  even  into 
Mercia  itself.  East  Anglia  had  refused  to  become  pagan- 
ized, even  though  conquered  by  the  warriors  which  followed 
the  lead  of  Mercia's  king.  Three  years  before  the  battle  of 
Winwaed  Penda's  son,  Peada,  married  the  daughter  of  Oswy 
and  was  thereupon  baptized  to  the  Christian  faith,  his  father 
offering  no  opposition,  that  sturdy  old  chief  declaring  that 
he  only  "  hated  and  scorned  those  whom  he  saw  not  doing 
the  works  of  the  faith  they  had  received."  Thus  it  was  that 
the  last  stronghold  of  paganism  was  carried  and  all  of  Mer- 
cia acepted  the  faith  which  had  been  preached  by  the  Irish 
missionaries. 

While  Christianity  had  been  slowW  making  its  way  through 
the  central  and  northern  kingdoms  of  Britain,  Sussex, 
hemmed  in  and  isolated  by  her  forests  and  fens,  remained 
stubbornly  pagan.  The  people  of  this  district  were  at  last 
converted  through  the  ministration  of  Wilfrid,  who  had  been 
driven  from  his  see  in  Northumbria  three  years  before  by  a 
civil  dissension.  He  had  made  a  journey  to  Rome  and  re- 
mained there  two  years.  From  this  city  he  set  out  again  for 
Britain  with  the  purpose  of  preaching  the  gospel  to  the 
South  Saxons.  The  king  of  this  country,  Ethelwalch,  had 
some  time  before  been  converted  to  the  new  faith  while  re- 
siding in  the  province  of  Mercia.  He,  therefore,  received 
Wilfrid  with  great  satisfaction  and  aided  him  in  his  work 
in  every  way  that  he  could.  The  people,  who  had  hitherto 
resisted  all  efforts  of  missionaries  to  convert  them,  now  re- 
sponded joyfully  to  the  ministrations  of  Wilfrid.     The  his- 


96  The  History  of  Christianity 

torian  Bede  says  that  Wilfrid,  "  by  preaching  to  them,  not 
only  delivered  them  from  the  misery  of  perpetual  damnation, 
but  also  from  an  inexpressible  calamity  of  temporal  death, 
for  no  rain  had  fallen  in  that  province  in  three  years  before 
his  arrival,  whereupon  a  dreadful  famine  ensued,  which  cru- 
elly destroyed  the  people.  In  short,  it  is  reported  that 
very  often  forty  or  fifty  men,  being  spent  with  want,  would 
go  together  to  some  precipice  out  to  the  sea-shore,  and  there, 
hand  in  hand,  perish  by  the  fall  or  be  swallowed  up  by  the 
waves.  But  on  the  very  day  on  which  the  nation  received 
the  baptism  of  faith,  there  fell  a  soft  but  plentiful  rain ;  the 
earth  revived  again,  the  verdure  being  restored  to  the  fields, 
the  season  was  pleasant  and  fruitful.  Thus  the  former  su- 
perstition being  rejected  and  idolatry  exploded,  the  hearts 
and  flesh  of  all  rejoiced  in  the  living  God,  and  became  con- 
vinced that  He  who  is  the  true  God  had,  through  his  heavenly 
grace,  enriched  them  with  wealth  both  temporal  and  spir- 
itual." Thus  in  681,  more  than  two  hundred  years  after 
the  settlement  of  these  barbarian  tribes  in  Britain,  was  the 
last  of  them  converted  to  Christianity. 

It  has  already  been  noticed  that  the  conversion  of  the  Ger- 
man tribes  in  Britain  was  not  brought  about  by  missionaries 
from  Rome.  Augustine  and  his  band  of  monks  did  not  suc- 
ceed in  permanently  converting  any  of  the  kingdoms  save 
Kent.  The  Christian  movement  which  was  undertaken  in 
the  north  by  the  conversion  of  Edwin  came  to  nothing,  and 
the  great  plan  which  Gregory  had  submitted  for  the  ecclesi- 
astical government  of  the  island  was  far  from  being  carried 
out.  It  will  be  remembered  that,  before  the  landing  of  the 
English  in  Britain,  the  Christian  Church  had  stretched  in  an 
unbroken  line  across  western  Europe  to  the  farthest  coasts 
of  Ireland.  The  Germanic  conquests  of  Britain  had  thrust 
a  wedge  of  paganism  into  the  very  heart  of  this  great  com- 
munion and  split  it  in  two  parts.  To  the  south  lay  Italy, 
Spain,  and  Gaul,  whose  churches  acknowledged  the  suprem- 
acy of  the  see  of  Rome.  Upon  the  other  side  lay  the  church 
of  Ireland  practically  cut  off  from  all  communication  with 
the  rest  of  Christendom.  In  fact,  the  history  of  Ireland 
had  been  somewhat  peculiar,  as  it  had  never  been  touched 


Roman  and  Irish  Christianity  97 

by  Roman  conquest.  While  Britain  had  been  conquered  and 
to  a  certain  extent  civilized  by  Rome,  Ireland  remained  out- 
side of  the  pale,  entirely  free  from  Roman  influence.  Her 
government  had  remained  tribal  and  the  Christian  Church 
partook  of  the  main  features  of  her  political  government. 
In  the  centralization  of  Christianity  and  the  growth  of  the 
power  of  the  see  of  Rome,  Ireland  had  been  left  out.  Here 
Christianity  had  been  received  with  enthusiasm  as  the  result 
of  the  missionary  zeal  of  Patrick ;  monasteries  were  estab- 
lished, and  considerable  attention  given  to  the  spread  of 
knowledge  of  the  Bible  and  letters.  From  here  missionaries 
went  out  in  all  directions.  The  famous  Irish  missionary,  Co- 
lumban,  founded  monasteries  in  Burgundy  and  the  Appe- 
nines.  A  mission  station  established  by  an  Irish  refugee 
upon  "  a  low  island  of  barren  gneiss-rock  off  the  west  coast 
of  Scotland  "  became  the  famous  lona  or  Hii,  so  justly  cele- 
brated in  the  history  of  the  north  of  England  and  of  Scot- 
land. It  was  here  that  Oswald  found  a  refuge.  When  he 
became  king  of  Northumbria,  he  summoned  missionaries  from 
among  its  monks  to  aid  in  the  conversion  of  his  people.  It 
was  from  here  that  Aiden  went  to  found  his  famous  mon- 
astery at  Lindisfarne.  From  this  new  center  preachers 
poured  forth  over  the  whole  of  heathen  Britain.  As  a  result 
of  this  movement,  Northumbria  and  Mercia  were  converted 
to  Irish  Christianity  which  had  thus  far  never  recognized 
the  authority  of  the  pope.  The  East  Anglians  had  been 
won  over  by  Felix,  a  Burgundian  priest,  while  the  West  Sax- 
ons had  been  baptized  by  the  Lombard  Birinus.  Thus,  there 
was  no  uniform  rule  of  faith  or  harmony  of  practice ;  there 
was  no  commonly  accepted  authority  before  which  rival 
bishops  might  bring  their  quarrels  for  adjustment  or  the 
unworthy  might  be  tried  and  punished.  There  were  many 
ambitious  bishops  desirous  of  extending  their  own  authority 
over  neighboring  sees  and  in  this  wa^^  w^ere  ofttimes  aided 
by  rival  kings  who  cared  not  so  much  for  unit}^  and  peace 
within  the  church  as  they  did  for  political  aggrandizement. 
"  Churchmen  were  not  all  saints ;  and  too  often  the  bishops 
shared  fully  in  the  ambitious  rivalries  of  their  masters,  and 
lent  their  influence  to  conquest  and  land  spoiling,  in  order 


98  The  History  of  Christianity 

to  enlarge  their  authority,  or  curtail  that  of  some  trouble- 
some neighbor."  Of  course  through  it  all  was  some  com- 
munity of  life,  some  feeling  of  common  sympathy,  and  some 
sense  of  common  interest,  but  this  idea  of  unity  was  at  best 
but  vaguely  apprehended.  There  was  here  a  great  work  to 
be  done,  "  to  take  advantage  of  the  natural  desire  of  Chris- 
tian men  for  unity,  to  bring  all  the  churches  of  Teutonic 
Britain  into  one  organic  system,  united  under  one  national 
primate."  This  great  work  was  undertaken  and  accom- 
plished by  Wilfrid  and  Theodore. 

Wilfrid  was  born  in  the  year  634.  When  fourteen  years 
of  age  he  attracted  the  attention  of  Anfled,  the  wife  of  Oswy, 
who  sent  him  to  be  educated  to  Lindisfarne.  During  his 
years  of  study  at  Lindisfarne,  Wilfrid's  mind  had  become 
fired  with  the  desire  of  visiting  the  continent  and  becoming 
acquainted  with  the  great  Christian  world  which  lay  beyond 
the  boundaries  and  the  knowledge  of  his  own  people.  The 
queen  decided  to  humor  this  fancy  on  his  part  and  sent  him 
to  Rome  that  he  might  pursue  his  studies  and  ripen  his  facul- 
ties by  travel.  He  went  in  the  company  of  Benedict  Biscop, 
a  name  well  known  throughout  Northumbria.  After  an  ab- 
sence of  four  years,  he  returned  and  was  installed  as  abbot 
of  Ripon.  During  his  travels  and  study  abroad,  the  young 
monk  had  had  his  eyes  opened  and  had  caught  the  spirit  of 
the  mighty  traditions  of  Rome  and  had  bowed  to  her  author- 
ity. He  was  thoroughly  convinced  that  the  practices  of 
the  Celtic  church  were  schismatic  and  he,  therefore,  de- 
manded that  the  church  of  Northumbria  should  put  itself  in 
harmony  with  Rome.  Some  of  the  disciples  of  Paulinus  were 
still  alive  and  aided  the  young  monk  in  this  effort.  To  set- 
tle the  dispute  which  arose,  a  synod  was  summoned  at 
Whitby  in  664.  Here  Colman,  the  bishop  of  York,  argued 
in  behalf  of  the  practices  of  his  own  (the  Celtic)  church, 
while  Wilfrid  ably  championed  the  cause  of  Rome.  King 
Oswy  became  at  last  impatient  and  decided  to  take  a  part  in 
the  discussion.  Turning  to  Colman,  he  asked :  "  Is  it  true 
that  the  ke^^s  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  were  given  to 
Peter  by  our  Lord.^  Has  any  such  power  been  given  to 
Columban,  the  founder  of  the  Scottish  church.?  "     Colman 


The  Work  of  Theodore  99 

answered:  "None."  "Then,"  said  the  king,  "if  Peter 
be  the  door-keeper,  he  is  the  man  for  me."  The  logic  of 
the  king  was  beyond  dispute.  Colman  and  his  monks  with- 
drew from  the  synod,  and  once  more  the  Northumbrians 
began  to  follow  the  customs  which  they  had  learned  from 
Paulinus.      This  was  the  first  great  step  toward  unity. 

In  668,  only  four  years  after  the  synod  of  Whitby,  Pope 
Vitalian  appointed  a  Greek  monk,  Theodore  of  Tarsus,  to 
the  vacant  see  of  Canterbury.  He  arrived  in  Kent  in  the 
following  year  with  the  specific  determination  of  organizing 
the  English  church  in  such  a  manner  as  to  bring  it  into 
direct  relations  with  the  see  of  Rome.  When  Augustine  ar- 
rived in  Britain,  seventy-two  years  before,  the  heathen  Eng- 
lish were  divided  into  three  well-marked  divisions  or  king- 
doms: the  Northern,  the  Central  and  the  Southern.  When 
Theodore  arrived  he  found  the  same  divisions  substantially 
unchanged.  But  the  people  by  this  time  had  all  been  con- 
verted to  Christianity,  It  was  impossible  to  carry  out  the 
four-square  plan  of  Gregory  because  the  people  were 
heathen.  Now  it  was  not  only  possible  but  necessary  to 
organize  the  whole  island  for  ecclesiastical  purposes.  For 
the  first  three  years  of  Theodore's  stay,  he  did  nothing  but 
visit  all  parts  of  the  island  in  order  that  he  might  become 
acquainted  with  the  people  and  their  needs.  He  was  every- 
where received  with  joy  and  reverence.  Bede  says,  "  He 
was  the  first  of  the  archbishops  whom  the  whole  English 
church  consented  to  obey."  After  he  had  settled  all  per- 
sonal disputes  among  the  bishops  and  brought  about  some 
order  throughout  the  church,  he  called  an  assembly  of  all 
the  bishops  and  leading  members  of  the  clergy  at  Hertford 
in  673.  They  came  in  large  numbers.  In  this  council  it 
was  decreed,  after  considerable  discussion,  that  each  bishop 
with  his  clergy  should  be  restricted  to  his  own  diocese  and 
that  he  should  in  no  way  interfere  with  the  authority  of  a 
neighboring  bishop.  A  still  more  important  step  was  taken 
in  the  establishment  of  an  annual  council  of  all  the  bishops 
of  Britain  at  Clovesho.  This  was  a  long  step  towards  the 
unification  of  the  church  throughout  the  island,  for  at  this 
council  they  passed  regulations  not  merely  for  one  bishopric 


100  The  History  of  Christianity 

but  for  the  whole  church.     These  steps  having  been  taken, 
Theodore  next  gave  his  attention  to  the  permanent  organ- 
ization of  the   church.     This   organization  involved  an  in- 
crease in   the   number   of   episcopal  sees   and   a   consequent 
breaking  up  of  the  great  dioceses  into  numerous  smaller  ones. 
To  accomplish  this  latter  scheme  Theodore  had  recourse  to 
the  older  tribal  boundaries  which  the  English  settlers  had 
carefully   preserved   throughout   their   settlement,   although 
many  of  these  little  kingdoms  had  been  absorbed  in  the  strug- 
gle which  had  been  going  on  for  political  unity.     The  see 
of  East  Anglia  was  broken  up  into  the  dioceses  of  the  North- 
Folk  and  the  South-Folk.     The  great  kingdom  of  the  Mer- 
cians which  was  at  this  time  under  the  rule  of  Wulfhere,  and 
which  consisted  of  one  vast  diocese  under  Bishop  Wilfrid, 
Theodore  broke  up  into  four  dioceses,  that  of  Middle  Eng- 
lish with  a  seat  at  Leicester  by  establishing  at  Worcester 
a  bishopric  of  the  Hwiccas  of  the  lower  Severn  valley,  and 
another   for   the   Hecanas   at   Hereford ;   while   the  peoples 
whom  King  Wulfhere  had  conquered  from  the  kingdom  of 
the  West  Saxons,  and  part  of  whom  seemed  to  have  been 
known  as  the  South  Engle,  were  committed  to  the  charge  of 
a  bishop  at  Dorchester  on  the  Thames.     It  would  seem  that 
Wilfrid  was  much  opposed  to  the  breaking  up  of  his  vast 
diocese  and  the  consequent  lessening  of  his  power.     To  carry 
out  this  reform  Theodore  found  it  necessary  to  remove  this 
stubborn  bishop  from  his  diocese  and  put  another  in  his  stead. 
Wilfrid,  as  we  know,  went  to  Rome,  and  afterwards  took 
upon  himself  the  conversion  of  the  South  Saxons  which  he 
accomplished  in  681.     After  the  reorganization  of  Mercia 
Theodore  undertook  the  same  task  for  Northumbria.     Here- 
tofore the  bishopric  of  York  extended  over  the  whole  of  this 
territory.     Two   new  bishoprics   were   now   created,  one   at 
Lindisfarne,  and  the  other  far  away  at  Abercorn,  across  the 
Firth  of  Forth,  in  the  province  of  the  Picts.     There  was  a 
delay  of  three  years  in  the  reorganization  of  Northumbria, 
no  doubt  owing  to  a  war  which  had  sprung  up  between  that 
country  and  Mercia  over  the  government  of  the  Lindiswara. 
Wessex  resisted  all  the  attempts  of  Theodore  at  reorganiza- 
tion, but  some  years  after  the  archbishop's  death  it  yielded 


Results  of  Theodore's  Efforts  101 

to  necessity,  and  the  whole  nation  was  thereupon  grouped 
in  sixteen  sees  and  made  subject  to  the  Archbishop  of  Can- 
terbury. This  arrangement  was  after  a  time  modified  so  as 
to  allow  to  York  the  position  of  an  archbishopric,  with  three 
suffragan  sees.  Under  Edward  the  Elder  the  plan  of  Theo- 
dore in  its  entirety  was  carried  out,  and  the  territorial  or- 
ganization of  the  dioceses  as  then  fixed  has  remained  to  the 
present  day  with  but  few  changes,  and  those  of  minor  nature. 

Theodore  proved  himself  to  be  a  man  of  great  power  and 
energy,  the  greatest  man  in  England  of  his  time.  He  labored 
unceasingly  for  the  accomplishment  of  his  great  task,  and 
that  it  was  finally  accomplished  was  due  to  his  perseverance 
and  skill.  He  it  was  who  created  the  national  church.  Wil- 
frid, who  had  started  the  movement,  but  who  was  too  selfish 
to  aid  in  its  entire  completion,  finally  made  his  peace  with 
the  archbishop,  and  was  restored  to  the  see  of  York,  thus 
finally  recognizing  the  righteousness  of  Theodore's  purpose. 
Theodore  died  in  688  at  the  advanced  age  of  eighty-eight. 
But  his  work  was  of  an  abiding  nature.  When  he  laid  down 
his  work  the  six  unxmeldy  sees  had  been  broken  up  into  fifteen 
united  under  the  close  supervision  of  the  Archbishop  of  Can- 
terbury. But  important  as  was  the  work  of  Theodore  for 
the  church,  even  greater  was  his  influence  upon  the  future 
development  of  the  Teutonic  tribes  of  Britain.  It  was  he 
who  prepared  the  way  for  the  political  unification  of  Eng- 
land by  revealing  the  process  by  which  this  could  be  accom- 
plished. The  unity  of  the  English  church  in  688  meant  the 
unity  of  the  English  people  in  the  centuries  to  come. 

Theodore  also  assisted  in  laying  deep  and  stable  the  foun- 
dations of  the  future  England.  He  established  a  penitential 
system  which  instilled  into  the  barbaric  mind  a  new  concep- 
tion of  vice  and  crime  as  sin  against  God  which  could  not  be 
palliated  by  a  simple  payment  of  fines.  He  thus  prepared 
a  foundation  for  the  future  work  of  Edward  I,  of  Glanville, 
and  of  Bracton,  in  the  quickening  moral  sense  of  the  people. 
He  established  a  school  at  Canterbury  which  he  placed  under 
the  direction  of  his  friend,  the  abbot  Hadrian,  where  instinic- 
tion  was  given  in  Latin  and  Greek,  arithmetic  and  astron- 
omy, and  the  themes  of  Holy  Scriptures.     This  was  the  fore- 


102  The  History  of  Christianity 

runner  of  the  great  schools  of  Jarrow  and  York.     The  Gre- 
gorian music  was  also  taught  for  the  first  time. 

This  chapter  ought  not  to  be  closed  without  the  mention 
of  some  other  great  men  who  contributed  at  this  time  to  the 
elevation  and  enlightenment  of  their  people.  Benedict 
Biscop  has  already  been  mentioned  as  the  companion  of  Wil- 
frid upon  his  first  journey  to  Rome.  He  was  a  quiet  and 
unassuming  man  who  made  no  such  noise  in  the  world  as  did 
the  stormy  and  quarrelsome  Wilfrid,  but  he  merited  no  less 
of  future  generations  than  did  that  renowned  churchman. 
He  was  the  first  to  introduce  stained  glass  into  England,  by 
bringing  glass  workers  from  Gaul,  in  order  to  provide  his 
own  monastery  and  still  more  famous  school  at  Jarrow,  going 
himself  to  Rome  to  procure  the  necessary  books  and  pictures 
for  its  library.  It  was  he  who  made  possible  the  work  of 
Bede  and  Alcuin  by  his  enlightenment  and  zeal.  Cuthbert, 
who  was  consecrated  bishop  of  Lindisfarne  by  Theodore,  was 
the  most  famous  native  preacher  of  his  time.  He  spent  the 
greater  part  of  his  long  life  travelling  through  the  remoter 
mountain  settlements  of  Northumbria,  "  from  whose  rough- 
ness and  poverty  other  teachers  turned  aside."  He  prob- 
ably accomplished  more  toward  the  real  Christianizing  of 
the  people  and  the  ameliorating  of  their  condition  than 
any  other  man.  Wliile  Theodore  organized  and  Wilfrid 
preached,  it  was  Cuthbert  who  taught  the  people  by  example 
how  to  live.  It  was  at  this  time,  also,  that  Caedmon,  the 
peasant  Milton,  the  cow-herd  of  Whitby,  "  sang  of  the  crea- 
tion of  the  world,  the  origin  of  man  ...  of  the  terror  of 
future  punishment,  the  horror  of  hell  pangs,  and  the  joys  of 
heaven."  This  was  the  first  great  English  song  and,  al- 
though it  was  sung  by  the  untutored  lips  of  a  peasant,  it 
was  full  of  the  genuine  music  and  heart  pathos  of  the  English 
race. 

According  to  the  oldest  written  history  of  Germanic  Brit- 
ain, the  work  of  Bede,  the  heptarchic  states  were  already 
manifesting  a  tendency  to  group  themselves  into  three  great 
masses,  which  were  soon  to  be  known  as  the  kingdoms  of 
Northern,  Central,  and  Southern  Britain.  The  northern 
kingdom  reached  from  the  Humber  to  the  Firth  of  Forth. 


E7id  of  Northumbrian  Supremacy  103 

The  southern  kingdom  of  the  West  Saxons  reached  from  the 
coast  of  the  channel  to  WatHng  Street.  Between  the  king- 
dom of  the  West  Saxons  and  the  Northumbrians  beyond  the 
Humber,  lay  the  kingdom  of  Mid-Britain  wliich  later  became 
known  by  the  name  of  its  most  powerful  sub-division, 
IVIercia.  The  same  tendency  toward  centralization  which 
wrought  the  seven  or  eight  little  kingdoms  into  the  larger 
units,  was  still  present  and  active.  Each  of  these  three  king- 
doms attempted,  in  turn,  to  work  out  the  problem  of  national 
unit}'  by  so  extending  the  boundaries  of  its  own  authority 
as  to  bring  the  sway  of  the  whole  English  nation  under  that 
of  its  own  royal  house.  The  history  of  this  struggle  for 
supremacy  stretches  over  a  period  of  more  than  two  hundred 
3'ears.  The  first  one  of  the  three  to  undertake  the  task  of 
unification  was  Northumbria,  which  reached  its  greatest  ex- 
tent under  Edwin,  the  exiled  son  of  Aella,  the  old  king  of 
Deira.  After  a  fluctuating  history  of  a  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury, Northumbria  abandoned  the  struggle  for  supremacy 
in  659  to  Mercia  and  Wessex  but  still  remained  a  powerful 
state. 

\^^lile  the  Angles  were  making  the  settlements  north  of 
the  Humber,  which  afterwards  formed  the  kingdom  of  North- 
umbria, others  settled  to  the  south  of  that  river,  forming 
the  kingdom  of  East  Anglia  upon  the  coast,  and  that  of 
Mercia  reaching  to  the  head  waters  of  the  Trent.  We  have 
already  seen  how  these  Anglian  kingdoms  formed  a  last 
stronghold  of  paganism  and  consolidated  into  Mid-Britain, 
one  of  the  three  agglomerated  kingdoms.  A  hundred  years 
after  the  beginning  of  the  Northumbrian  overlordship,  the 
Mercians  became  the  great  power  of  Mid-Britain  under  the 
leadership  of  Ethelbald,  one  of  the  most  aggressive  kings 
that  had  thus  far  arisen.  His  supremacy  had  been  prepared 
by  Wulfhere,  657-675,  who,  succeeding  to  the  kingdom 
shortly  after  the  death  of  Penda,  reestablished  the  overlord- 
ship of  Mercia  over  the  tribes  of  Mid-England  which  had 
been  lost  by  his  father.  He  drove  the  West  Saxons  across 
the  Thames  and  annexed  to  his  own  realm  all  their  settle- 
ments which  lay  north  of  that  river.  The  industrial  prog- 
ress of  the  Mercian  kingdom  went  hand  in  hand  with  its 


104»  The  History  of  Christianity 

military  advancement.  The  unbroken  forests  of  the  western 
border  were  being  fast  cleared  away,  the  marshes  of  the 
eastern  coast  drained,  by  colonies  of  monks,  who  not  only 
taught  the  people  to  clear  and  till  the  soil  but  engaged  in 
these  occupations  themselves,  thus  giving  continual  proof  of 
the  hold  which  Christianity  had  taken  upon  these  people. 
The  abbey  of  Peterborough  rose  out  of  the  fen-lands  of  the 
east,  surrounded  by  clustering  religious  houses,  while  Guth- 
lac,  a  youth  of  the  royal  Mercian  blood,  took  refuge  from 
the  world  in  the  solitudes  of  Crowland,  and  gained  such  rev- 
erence by  reason  of  his  pious  acts,  that  a  grateful  people 
erected  over  his  tomb  the  stately  abbey  of  Crowlands.  A 
great  stone  church  took  the  place  of  the  hermit's  cell  and  the 
toil  of  the  brotherhood  gathered  here  soon  changed  the  sur- 
rounding pools  into  fertile  meadow-land. 

Mercia,  like  Northumbria,  had  a  fluctuating  history  but 
reached  its  greatest  extent  during  the  reign  of  Ethelbald, 
773-755.  He  succeeded  to  the  Mercian  throne  in  733  and 
immediately  overran  the  whole  of  Wessex  and  only  brought 
the  war  to  a  close  by  the  recognition  of  his  own  supremacy 
not  only  on  the  part  of  Wessex  but  of  all  the  English  south 
of  the  Humber.  But  he  was  too  ambitious  and  was  defeated 
and  slain  in  battle  with  the  Northumbrians  at  Secandum  in 
757.  Offa,  who  came  to  the  throne  upon  the  death  of  Ethel- 
bald,  was  a  powerful  ruler  and  during  his  long  reign  he  suc- 
ceeded in  raising  Mercia  to  a  position  of  great  influence  and 
power.  He  was  successful  in  a  series  of  struggles  with  the 
Welsh.  He  erected  a  huge  dyke  called  Ofl"a's  Dyke  from 
the  mouth  of  the  Wye  to  that  of  the  Dee  and  settled  colonies 
of  Englishmen  between  this  great  dyke  and  the  river  Severn, 
thus  forming  an  impregnable  barrier  against  further  inroads 
from  the  Welsh.  He  succeeded  in  reestablishing  the  suprem- 
acy of  Mercia  over  Kent,  East  Anglia,  Essex,  and  Sussex, 
but  was  foiled  in  his  attempts  to  reconquer  Wessex.  He  died 
in  796,  having  obtained  to  such  authority  throughout  Britain 
that  he  aspired  to  a  correspondence  upon  equal  terms  with 
Charles  the  Great.  He  left  his  kingdom  to  his  son  Cenwulf 
who  kept  the  INIercian  realm  together  during  a  period  of 
twenty-five  years,  but  was  not  able  to  extend  his  boundaries. 


Supremacy  of  TV  ess  ex  105 

Mercian  supremacy  ceased  in  829  when  it  was  forced  to  yield 
and  passed  under  the  sway  of  Wessex. 

The  kingdom  of  the  West  Saxons  grew  out  of  a  very  small 
settlement  of  Saxons  which  established  themselves  west  of 
the  border  lands  of  Kent,  upon  the  coast  of  Hampshire. 
Cerdic  and  Cymric  were  their  leaders.  Here  they  remained 
without  very  much  expansion  for  upwards  of  thirty  years. 
They  then  pushed  their  invasions  rapidly  until  that  territory 
now  comprising  the  shires  of  Wilts,  Berks,  Surrey,  Oxford, 
Bedford,  and  Bucks  fell  into  their  hands.  They  next  under- 
took the  conquest  of  the  lower  Severn  valley,  which  was  won 
by  the  battle  of  Deorham  in  577  and  permanently  added  to 
Wessex.  There  now  followed  a  period  of  internal  dissension 
which  lasted  for  nearly  two  hundred  years  and  which  kept 
Wessex  weak  and  unfit  either  to  contend  successfully  for  the 
leadership  of  the  English  or  to  conquer  the  Welsh  in  Corn- 
wall, who  kept  their  independence  until  815.  Finally  toward 
the  end  of  the  eighth  century,  Egbert,  a  descendant  of  the 
old  warrior  Ceawlin,  attempted  to  snatch  the  crown  from  a 
rival  branch  of  the  house  of  Cerdic.  In  this  he  was  unsuc- 
cessful and  was  driven  to  seek  shelter  at  the  court  of  the 
Mercian  king,  Offa.  Driven  from  this  refuge  he  went  to  the 
court  of  Charles  the  Great  where  he  witnessed  the  memorable 
events  which  preceded  the  elevation  of  that  great  monarch 
to  the  throne  of  the  Caesars  in  800.  Here  he  remained  for 
fourteen  years  when  he  Avas  summoned  home  to  assume  the 
crown  which  had  recently  fallen  from  the  head  of  his  rival, 
Beorhtric.  He  immediately  took  upon  himself  the  subjuga- 
tion of  the  West  Welsh  and  continued  this  warfare  for  eight 
years  until,  in  815,  the  subjugation  of  Coniwall  was  com- 
pleted and  the  supremacy  of  Wessex  extended  to  the  Land's 
End.  At  last  all  fear  from  Welsh  attack  in  the  rear  was 
removed  and  Wessex  was  left  free  to  undertake  the  subjuga- 
tion of  her  rival  kingdoms,  Mercia  and  Northumberland. 
He  first  undertook  the  conquest  of  Mercia  whose  king  had 
invaded  his  realm.  The  subjugation  of  this  kingdom  was 
completed  in  829  without  any  further  resistance.  The  dream 
of  the  union  of  all  England  now  took  possession  of  Egbert 
and  he  undertook  to  accomplish  what  Edwin  and  Edwy, 
Penda,  Ethelbald,  and  Offa  had  been  unable  to  do.     North- 


106  The  History  of  Christianity 

umbria  was  still  strong.  It  stood  at  the  head  of  the  English 
race  in  learning  and  the  arts  of  civilization.  The  inroads 
of  the  Northmen,  however,  had  weakened  the  spirit  of  the 
Northumbrians.  They  had  witnessed  the  ruin  of  their  cele- 
brated school  at  Jarrow  and  the  destruction  of  Holy  Island. 
The  kingdom  was  rent  with  civil  strife  and  the  Northum- 
brians themselves  seemed  to  despair  under  their  weak  king 
of  being  able  to  defend  themselves  against  the  Northmen. 
Under  these  conditions  they  decided  to'  take  the  decisive  step 
of  placing  their  kingdom  under  Egbert.  The  Northumbrian 
thegns  met  him  in  Derbyshire  and  formally  recognized  the 
supremacy  of  Wessex,  owning  Egbert  as  their  king.  With 
the  submission  of  Northumbria,  the  work  which  other  great 
kings  had  failed  to  do  was  now  accomplished  and  the  whole 
English  race  was  knit  together  under  one  rule.  Each  con- 
quered state  entered  into  dependent  relations  with  Wessex 
without,  however,  sacrificing  its  autonomy.  Thus  was 
formed  a  loose  confederation  of  subject  kingdoms  under  the 
leadership  of  Wessex.  The  three  centers  of  confederation 
at  last  gave  way  to  one,  which  was  a  long  step  toward  the 
unification  of  the  years  of  strife  to  bring  this  loosely  con- 
federated state  into  one  strong  well-knit  power. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

THE  ORIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  PAPACY 


"A! 


LL    beginnings    are    difficult."     This    comes    quickly 

Lhome  to  anyone  who  undertakes  to  sketch  the  history 

of  a  great  institution  that  has  profoundly  influenced  the  life 
of  the  world.      Beginnings  lie  deep-hidden,  reaching  far  back 
of    the    obvious    appearance    of    any    historical    institution. 
This  is  pre-eminently  true  of  the  institution  of  the  Papacy. 
It  is  fairly  well  defined  when  Alaric  makes  his  famous  descent 
upon  Rome  and  captures  the  city  in  410.      But  more  than 
two  hundred  years  before  the   establishment  of  the  Papal 
Monarchy  upon  the  ruins  of  Old  Rome,  the  primacy  of  the 
Roman   church  was   quite  generally   recognized  throughout 
Christendom.      (The  outcome  of  the  struggle  with  Marcion 
was   the  recognition  of  three  Apostolic  churches,  Antioch, 
Alexandria,   and  Rome,  the  last-named  being  the  only  one 
located  in  the  West.)      The  bishops  of  these  three  churches 
and  their  successors  became  the  established  authority  for  the 
interpretation  of  all  Scriptures.      Going  back,  then,  to  the 
primitive  organization  of  the   church,  we  find  that  almost 
from  the  beginning  it  was  Greek.     The  church  had  its  origin 
among  a  Syrian  people,  although  Jesus  and  his  immediate 
followers  spoke  Aramaic.     But  the  primal  records  of  Chris- 
tianity were  all  written  in  Greek  and  this  religion  spread 
with  utmost  rapidity  and  success  among  nations  of  Greek 
descent,  or  those  which  had  been  brought  under  Greek  influ- 
ence by  Alexander.     The  most  flourishing  churches  were  in 
Greek  cities.     By  the  middle  of  the  second  century  Chris- 
tianity had  wholly  passed  from  its  Jewish  environment  and 
had  become  completely  Greek  in  its  thought  and  in  its  lan- 
guage.    Justin  Martyr,  a  converted  Greek  philosopher,  who 
suffered  for  his  faith  in  165,  had  more  influence  upon  the 
church    of    the    second    and    third    centuries    than    did    the 

107 


108  The  History  of  Christianity 

Apostle  Paul.  Greek  was  the  language  of  commerce  in 
which  the  Jews,  the  masters  of  trade,  who  were  settled  in 
every  province  of  the  Roman  world,  carried  on  their  busi- 
ness enterprises.  Greek  colonists  were  planted  in  nearly 
every  island  of  the  Mediterranean  and  upon  the  coasts  of 
Italy,  Spain,  and  Gaul.  In  all  these  places  Greek-speaking 
Christian  communities  sprang  up.  Christianity  in  their 
hands  became  philosophic  and  speculative. 

In  polity  the  churches  throughout  the  Greek  empire  be- 
came, like  the  Greek  cities  of  old,  a  federation  of  republics. 
But  they  were  founded  on  a  religious  basis  and  not  a  na- 
tional one.  In  their  foundations  they  followed,  as  they  be- 
came established,  the  boundaries  of  the  Imperial  dioceses. 
These  little  democratic  republics  were  bound  together  by  no 
political  bonds  but  rather  "  those  of  common  sympathies, 
common  creeds,  common  social  bonds,  common  rites,  common 
usages  of  life,  and  a  hierarchy  everywhere,  in  theory  at  least, 
of  the  same  power  and  influence."  Christians  from  one  of 
these  little  communities  were  admitted  into  any  other  by 
means  of  "  a  letter  of  credit  "  from  the  bishop  or  presiding 
elder  of  the  community  from  which  the  traveler  came.  These 
communities  were  often  bound  together  by  the  bonds  of  char- 
ity as  were  the  Pauline  communities  to  that  of  Jerusalem. 
Still,  after  all  has  been  said,  each  of  these  little  religious 
republics  was  absolutely  independent.  The  Roman  East 
had  no  capital  as  did  the  West,  around  which  could  grow 
one  common  religious  center.  Antioch  in  Syria  and  Alexan- 
dria in  Egypt,  by  reason  of  their  wealth  and  political  impor- 
tance, had,  perhaps,  an  undue  influence  among  the  church 
communities,  but,  until  the  conflict  with  Marcion  and  other 
gnostic  teachers  gave  to  the  churches  of  these  cities  especial 
distinction  as  conservators  of  the  true  Apostolic  doctrine, 
there  was  no  subordination  of  one  church  to  another;  no 
supremacy.  The  union  of  the  various  Christian  communities 
which  tended  to  form  one  universal  church  was  a  voluntary 
association.  In  most  churches  the  bishop  had  evolved  from 
the  board  of  presbyters  and  risen  to  special  distinction  as  the 
business  head  of  the  church,  but  the  whole  episcopal  order 
was  on  precisely  the  same  level. 


Little  Accomplished  by  the  Eastern  Church       109 

Eastern  Christianity  when  once  established  and  mistress 
within  the  boundaries  of  the  empire  ceased  to  be  aggressive 
and  did  nothing  toward  the  conversion  of  the  outside  barbari- 
ans. The  real  Christian  spirit  seems  to  have  been  lost  and 
controversy  took  the  place  of  piety.  Christians  were  so 
busy  settling  the  Attributes  of  God,  and  the  person,  nature, 
and  will  of  Christ,  that  they  had  neither  time,  patience,  nor 
inclination  to  give  to  Christian  living.  While  the  topic  lies 
beyond  the  present  theme  the  historian  does  not  have  to  hunt 
for  the  reason  of  the  success  of  Mohammedanism.  The  lower 
clergy  had  wealth  and  influence  sufficient  to  live  in  ease,  and 
to  plan  ambitious  schemes,  but  not  enough  to  win  the  people 
to  any  active  striving  for  the  repression  of  immorality  and 
the  establishment  of  right  and  justice  between  man  and  man. 
For  the  most  part  lazy  and  vicious,  they  sunk  into  the  com- 
mon ignorance  and  superstition  of  a  worn-out  civilization. 
Barbarism  was  an  improvement  upon  this.  Monasticism 
arose  in  the  East.  Its  history  is  seen  in  another  chapter 
(XIX).  Here  it  is  sufficient  to  say  that  while  it  held 
many  excellent  qualities,  it  drew  from  civil  life  thousands  of 
men  who  ought  to  have  been  energetic  and  useful  citizens, 
into  a  barren  and  useless  indolence.  Instead  of  helping  to 
build  up  society  and  redeem  the  waste  places  of  the  earth, 
they  stood  aloof  from  the  world  and  its  activity ;  the  anchor- 
ites dwelling  in  caves  or  desert  wildernesses,  and  striving  to 
win  heaven  by  starving  all  the  natural  appetites  of  the  flesh 
and  contemplating  the  Divine ;  the  monks,  in  their  lonely  and 
securely  guarded  convents,  bent  upon  the  same  selfish  object, 
the  salvation  of  their  own  souls.  These  seemed  content  to 
let  the  rest  of  mankind  sink  to  inevitable  ruin. 

Turning  now  to  the  Western  portion  of  the  Roman  em- 
pire, let  us  inquire  into  the  workings  of  Christianity  during 
the  same  period  as  that  just  discussed.  From  the  first, 
Rome  was  the  center  of  Christian  activity  in  the  West,  and 
she  had  never  had  any  rivals.  The  church,  if  not  founded, 
was  surely  nourished  and  built  up  by  the  presence  and  help 
of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul.  It  was  located  in  the  capital  city 
of  the  world,  thus  having  a  tremendous  advantage  over  every 
other   Christian   community.     It  very   early   in  its   history 


110  The  History  of  Christianity 

gained  a  reputation  for  its  abounding  liberality  to  the  poor 
and  oppressed,  not  only  of  its  own  community,  but  also  of 
Christians  everywhere.  Her  authority  soon  reached  out  be- 
yond the  city  of  Rome.  Clement,  who  won  a  martyr's  crown 
in  96,  was  able  to  give  not  only  advice  and  consolation,  but 
also  directions  to  the  church  at  Corinth.  Little  by  little 
the  Roman  community  reached  out  to  the  churches  in  north- 
ern Africa,  Spain,  and  Gaul,  to  Carthage,  Cordova,  Tou- 
louse, Milan,  and  Lyons,  making  her  influence  and  power  felt 
in  all  these  places.  The  organization  of  the  Roman  church 
was  still  that  of  the  Greek  communities  of  the  East.  She 
was  still  a  member  of  the  federation  of  little  Greek  Christian 
republics,  but  she  was  continually  growing  toward  monarchy, 
in  imitation,  perhaps,  of  the  imperial  autocracy  which  she 
saw  about  her.  The  language  of  the  Roman  church  was 
still  Greek,  her  organization  Greek,  and  not  only  her  scrip- 
tures, but  also  her  Christian  books  and  letters  were  all  Greek. 
It  was  not  till  the  time  of  Tertullian  that  Latin  came  into  use 
in  the  church  to  any  great  extent.  Throughout  Gaul,  also, 
Christians  were  settled  chiefly  in  the  Greek  towns  which  rec- 
ognized Marseilles  as  their  parent  city.  All  these  retained 
Greek  as  their  vernacular  tongue.  There  was  a  colony  of 
Greeks  at  Lyons  where  Irenseus  lived  and  wrote  in  the  Greek 
language.  The  tongue  of  Christianity  was  thus  Greek  and 
the  Roman  church  had  through  this  medium  a  means  of  com- 
munication with  all  the  Christian  communities.  While  Rome 
herself  was  free  from  the  various  heresies  which  arose  in  the 
East  from  gnosticism  to  Montanism,  3'et  all  the  heretics  went 
to  Rome  and  at  least  endeavored  to  promulgate  and  establish 
their  sects.  Each  one  tried  to  gain  the  support  and  influ- 
ence of  the  bishop  of  Rome,  so  that  the  Roman  church  was 
perhaps  disturbed  more  by  these  than  was  any  other  church. 
This  was  also  true  with  the  great  controversies.  Rome  held 
herself  aloof  from  these,  caring  little  and  understanding  lit- 
tle. But  this  position  of  cold  neutrality  only  caused  her  to 
be  appealed  to  as  an  unprejudiced  arbiter  by  the  rabid  por- 
tions of  the  East.  She  did  little  or  nothing,  in  the  long  and 
heated  debates  in  synods  and  councils  to  establish  ortho- 
doxy.     She  merely  adopted  the  views  of  the  majorit}-  of  the 


Rome  Did  Nothing  More  than  the  East  111 

great  Eastern  churches,  and,  in  the  end,  gained  the  reputa- 
tion of  being  the  most  orthodox;  the  only  church,  in  fact, 
that  escaped  without  a  smell  of  fire  upon  her  garments. 

Thus  the  church  of  St.  Peter  at  Rome  kept  a  dignified 
and  somewhat  worthy  existence  as  the  mistress  of  Western 
Christianity   from  Constantine  the  Great  to  Augustus  the 
Little.     Church  historians   have  either  been  silent  or  have 
misrepresented  the  Christian  church  during  these  two  hun- 
dred years.     Look  at  a  map  of  the  Roman  empire  at  the 
accession  of  Constantine  the  Great  when  Christianity  became 
a  State  religion.     Look  again  at  a  map  of  the  Roman  em- 
pire, in  400,  before  the  Germans  smashed  the  frontier  and 
captured  the  "Eternal   City."     The  boundaries  are  about 
the  same.     Within  those  boundaries  life  has  gone  on  under 
the  protection  of  the  Roman  eagles  for  one  hundred  years, 
and  for  that  length  of  time  Christianity  has  been  the  State 
religion;  her  bishops  and  her  priests  are  on  the  pay  roll  of 
the  empire.     It  is  true  that  the  empire  of  Constantine  has 
been  broken  into  two  empires,  the  Eastern  and  the  Western. 
The  Christian  church  has  been  broken  into  the  Greek  church 
and  the  Latin  church.     But  these  divisions  are  only  artificial 
and  so  far  as  Christianity  is  concerned,  what  is  said  of  one 
portion  may  be   said  with  equal  truth  of  the  other.     The 
population  of  the  empire  has  fallen  off  one  third,  largely  be- 
cause so-called  Christian  women  refused  the  duty  of  bearing 
children.     The  evils  which  threatened  the  life  of  the  empire 
in  its  early  days  have  gone  on  unchecked  despite  the  fact  that 
the  population  of  the  empire  is  now  Christian.     The  State 
is   about  to  die  of  moral   rottenness   and  yet  the   State  is 
Christian.     From   the  establishment  of  Christianity  as  the 
State  religion  to  the  fall  of  that  State,  the  Christian  church 
did  not  send  out  one  missionary  to  bear  the  "message  of 
Christ "  to  the  pagan  and  barbarian  milhons  which  pressed 
upon  every  boundary  of  the  Roman  empire.     The  Christian 
church  had  control  of  vast  wealth.      Cyril  of  Alexandria  was 
able  to  pay   from   the   revenues   of  his   see  fifteen  hundred 
pounds  in  gold  and  silver,  as  a  light  valuation,  to  corrupt  the 
government  of  the  city  and  overthrow  an  ecclesiastical  rival. 
Yet  the  historian  can  find  no  case  of  the  expenditure  of  one 


112  The  History  of  Christianity 

single  dollar  for  the  conversion  of  the  throngs  of  people  that 
lay  just  outside  the  pale  of  the  empire  or  the  amelioration 
of  their  degraded  condition.  What  could  have  been  accom- 
plished had  the  clergy  been  anything  else  than  lazy  and 
profligate,  and  the  Christian  communities  other  than  selfish 
and  immoral  is  seen  in  the  wholesale  conversion  of  the  Ger- 
mans in  the  sixth  and  seventh  centuries  by  the  brilliant  work 
of  Rome, 

By  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  century  the  idea  was  be- 
coming dominant  that  the  priesthood  formed  a  separate 
class,  representing  the  visible  church.  This  was  in  accord- 
ance with  the  theocratic  idea.  Thus  the  priests  were  looked 
upon  as  the  link  between  "  the  kingdom  of  God  on  earth 
and  its  divine  head,  and  as  the  channel  through  which  the 
Holy  Spirit  was  communicated  to  the  world."  It  was  be- 
coming the  common  thought  of  the  church  that  the  clergj' 
should  keep  apart  from  the  ordinary  secular  affairs  and  ex- 
hibit to  the  world  a  higher  form  of  morality  than  was 
required  or  expected  of  the  common  Christian.  This  feeling 
on  the  part  of  the  people  engendered  a  false  pride  on  the 
part  of  clergymen  by  reason  of  their  superior  sanctity. 
Through  the  influence  of  the  church  councils  and  the  teach- 
ings of  great  leaders  like  Ambrose,  Jerome,  and  Augustine, 
it  became  quite  widely  recognized  as  a  doctrine  that  bishops, 
presbyters,  and  deacons  should  remain  unmarried.  This 
met  with  much  opposition  in  the  East  where  the  example  of 
pious  and  respected  bishops  was  opposed  to  it.  In  the  West 
especially  the  ethical  ideal  of  the  age  was  the  ascetic,  and 
this  made  demands  of  a  special  kind  upon  the  clergy,  espe- 
cially in  regard  to  celibacy.  The  Spanish  Council  of  Elvira 
passed  a  canon  demanding  that  married  bishops,  presbyters, 
and  deacons  abstain  from  all  intercourse  with  their  wives 
after  ordination.  With  this  canon  went  the  supposition  that 
those  marriages  had  been  entered  into  when  they  were  lay- 
men. Siricius,  who  was  chosen  Bishop  of  Rome  upon  the 
death  of  Damasus,  in  385,  proved  to  be  a  strong  prelate 
with  ambitious  notions  for  the  importance  and  dignity  of  the 
Roman  see.  Himerius,  Bishop  of  Tarragona  in  Spain,  had 
written  a  letter  to  Damasus  but  shortly  before  that  pontiff's 


Decretal  of  Siricius  113 

death,  asking  his  advice  upon  the  question  of  the  celibacy 
of  the  clergy.  This  letter  came  into  the  hands  of  Siricius 
for  a  reply.  This  was  just  the  opportunity  which  the 
Bishop  of  Rome  was  awaiting.  In  answer  to  Himerius,  who 
only  asked  for  advice,  he  despatched  a  decretal  couched  in 
language  imph'ing  that  "  the  usages  of  Rome  were  to  be 
considered  as  precedents  for  all  other  churches."  The  sub- 
ject of  the  decretal  related,  as  has  been  said,  to  the  celibacy 
of  the  clergy.  Marriage  was  to  them  peremptorily  inter- 
dicted. This  doctrine  is  of  special  importance  because  it  is 
the  admittedly  genuine  decretal  or  letter  of  the  Bishop  of 
Rome,  regarded  as  having  the  force  of  lam  for  the  Western 
church.  To  this  separation  of  its  ministers,  and  a  caste 
conception  of  the  priesthood  which  resulted  therefrom,  was 
not  a  little  due  the  splendor  and  the  strength  of  the  Western 
church  as  a  world-power  in  the  Middle  Ages ;  and  of  this 
power  her  Chief  Pastor  became  more  and  more  the  executive 
and  the  expression.  Rome  having  once  placed  her  hand 
on  anything  never  let  go  if  by  policy  or  force  she  could 
retain  her  hold.  In  379,  the  political  diocese  of  Illyricum 
was  separated  from  the  Western  and  given  over  to  the  East- 
ern division  of  the  empire.  Damasus  had,  however,  insisted 
upon  its  retention  as  ecclesiastically  subject  to  Rome,  and 
had  appointed  as  his  vicar,  Ascholius,  Bishop  of  Thessalon- 
ica,  and  after  him,  Bishop  Anysius.  Now  Siricius  renewed 
the  vicariate  of  this  prelate  upon  his  elevation  to  the  Chair 
of  St.  Peter,  and  when  Anastacius  became  Bishop  of  Rome 
he  followed  the  same  policy,  though  his  power  was  of  short 
duration.  He  died  in  402,  and  was  succeeded  by  Innocent  I. 
The  Council  of  Sardica,  in  347,  gave  to  Julius,  the  Bishop  of 
Rome,  the  privilege  of  appointing  judges  to  try  the  cases  of 
condemned  bishops,  if  he  thought  their  appeals  worthy  of 
special  consideration.  Indeed  he  could  institute  a  revision 
of  tlie  verdict  of  synods,  even  though  no  appeal  were  made 
to  him.  This  really  placed  the  final  decision  of  all  cases  in 
the  hands  of  the  Bishop  of  Rome.  This  honor  to  the  mem- 
ory of  St.  Peter  was  paid  in  good  faith,  but  it  meant  more 
than  the  Council  dreamed. 

It  was  at  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  century  when  the  life 


114?  The  History  of  Christianity 

of  the  mighty  Roman  empire  was  drawing  to  a  close  in  the 
ignoble  hands  of  Honorius,  and  the  Northern  Barbarians 
were  ready  to  over-run  and  settle  down  upon  the  ruins  of  a 
State  that  had  controlled  the  fortunes  of  the  civilized  world 
for  more  than  seven  hundred  years,  that  Innocent  I  was 
chosen  to  the  Chair  of  St.  Peter.  This  high  position  of 
power  and  influence  was  attained  by  reason  of  high  moral 
and  spiritual  qualities,  as  Innocent  was  a  man  of  unimpeach- 
able holiness.  But  circumstances  combined  in  his  favor  and 
the  course  of  public  events  was  such  as  immediately  to 
strengthen  the  seat  of  the  Bishop  by  undermining  the  throne 
of  Caesar,  and  by  finally  driving  him  from  the  ancient  im- 
perial capital.  Innocent  was  born  at  Albano  within  the 
Roman  territory  and,  consequently,  had  the  honor  of  Roman 
blood  and  lineage.  He  had  in  very  marked  degree  the  cold, 
clear,  common  sense,  dignified  bearing,  and  imperious  nature 
of  the  Roman  patrician.  He  thoroughly  understood  his 
position  and  was  determined  to  push  to  the  uttermost  the 
Papal  claims.  It  was  on  the  mind  of  Innocent  that  first 
dawned  "  the  vast  conception  of  Rome's  universal  ecclesias- 
tical supremacy,  dim  as  yet  and  shadowy,  yet  full  and  com- 
prehensive in  its  outline."  His  claims  were  such,  and  so  far 
made  good,  that  we  are  justified  in  bestowing  upon  him  the 
title  of  Pope,  "  the  earliest  Roman  Bishop  that  can  with 
propriety  be  so  called."  His  predecessors  had  done  some- 
thing toward  the  elevation  of  the  Roman  See ;  the  Councils 
of  Sardica  and  Elvira  had  added  important  patterns.  In 
these  tracks  Innocent  advanced  with  success  and  ever- 
growing self-confidence.  He  commissioned  the  Bishop  of 
Thessalonica  as  his  vicar  for  the  Illyrian  provinces,  com- 
municated his  ordinances  for  observance  to  the  Western 
provinces  and  laid  claim  to  the  power  of  deciding  as  superior 
judge  in  major  cases.  This  claim  was  based  upon  the  Canon 
of  Sardica,  which  was  for  the  time  regarded  as  Nicene.  He 
enforced  the  duty  of  sending  information  as  to  important 
events  to  Rome.  He  championed  in  a  worthy  manner  the 
cause  of  John  Chrysostom  in  his  controversy  with  The- 
ophilus.  Bishop  of  Alexandria,  and  in  the  Pelagian  contro- 
versy,   both    sides    referred    the   matter   to   his    arbitration. 


Sack  of  Rome  hy  Alaric  115 

This  summary  of  his  acts  tells  us  better  than  wordy  descrip- 
tions the  purpose  and  the  power  of  Innocent.  He  declares 
in  one  of  his  earliest  epistles,  "  that  all  the  churches  of  the 
West,  not  of  Italy  alone,  but  of  Gaul,  Spain,  and  Africa, 
having  been  planted  by  St.  Peter  and  his  successors,  owed 
filial  obedience  to  the  parent  See,  are  bound  to  follow  her 
example  in  all  points  of  discipline,  and  to  maintain  a  rigid 
uniformity  with  all  her  usages."  It  is  but  a  brief  time  be- 
fore a  representative  of  each  of  these  provinces  gives  evidence 
of  the  truth  of  the  position  of  Innocent.  The  Bishop  of 
Rouen  requests  from  the  Bishop  of  Rome,  the  rules  of  ec- 
clesiastical discipline  observ'ed  within  the  Roman  see.  To 
this  Innocent  replies  commending  "  the  zeal  of  the  Gaulish 
Bishop,  for  uniformity,  so  contrary  to  the  lawless  spirit  of 
innovation  which  prevailed  in  some  parts  of  the  Christian 
world."  He  sent  him  a  book  of  regulations,  very  severe  in 
its  nature,  especially  concerning  the  celibacy  of  the  clergy. 
Exuperius,  Bishop  of  Toulouse,  is  highly  commended  because 
instead  of  usurping  undue  authority  he  has  appealed  to  the 
See  of  Rome,  and  so  on. 

At  midnight  on  the  24th  of  August,  410,  Alaric,  with  his 
army  of  West  Goths,  entered  Rome  by  the  Salarian  Gate, 
outside  of  which  Hannibal  had  encamped  six  hundred  years 
before,  and  took  the  Imperial  City.  Eleven  hundred  and 
sixty-four  years  had  passed  since  its  legendary  foundation 
by  the  miraculous  twins  that  had  been  suckled  by  a  wolf; 
four  hundred  and  forty-one  j'ears  had  gone  by  since  the 
battle  of  Actium  which  made  Caesar  Augustus  Lord  of  the 
Roman  World.  When  the  Gothic  trumpets  sounded  on  that 
fateful  night  they  announced  that  ancient  history  had  come 
to  an  end,  and  that  our  modern  time  was  born.  Even  in 
that  age  of  weakness  and  of  immense  and  growing  confusion, 
the  nations  held  their  breath  when  these  tidings  broke  upon 
them.  Those  noble  Romans,  adherents  of  the  heathen  reli- 
gion, who  still  survived,  felt  in  them  a  judgment  of  the  gods, 
and  charged  upon  the  Christians  the  long  sequel  of  calami- 
ties which  had  come  down  upon  the  once  invincible  empire. 
The  Christians  reported  that  Rome's  fall  was  the  chastise- 
ment  for  idolatry.     The   supreme  philosopher   of  Western 


116  The  History  of  Christianity 

Christendom,  the  African  Father  St.  Augustine,  wrote  his 
monumental  work.  The  City  of  God,  by  way  of  proving  that 
there  was  a  Divine  kingdom  which  heathen  Rome  could  perse- 
cute in  the  martyrs,  but  the  final  triumph  of  which  it  could 
never  prevent.  This  magnificent  conception,  wrought  out  in 
a  vein  of  prophecy,  and  with  an  elegance  which  has  never 
lost  its  power,  furnished  the  succeeding  times  an  Apocalypse, 
no  less  than  a  justification  of  the  Gospel.  Instead  of  the 
heathen  Rome,  it  set  up  an  ideal  Christendom.  But  the  cen- 
ter, the  meeting  place  of  old  and  new,  was  the  "  City  on  the 
Seven  Hills." 

To  the  Roman  Empire  when  it  finally  fell  into  ruin,  suc- 
ceeded the  Papal  Monarchy.  The  pope  called  himself  Pon- 
tifex  Maximus,  at  once  claimed  to  be  the  heir  of  that  hier- 
arcliic  name,  the  oldest  in  Europe,  and  which  signified  "  The 
Priest  that  offered  sacrifice  on  the  Sublician  bridge."  The 
name  denotes  in  a  symbolic  fasliion  what  the  Papacy  was 
destined  to  achieve  as  well  as  the  inward  strength  on  which 
it  relied  during  the  thousand  years  that  stretch  between  the 
invasion  of  the  Barbarians  and  the  Renaissance.  When  we 
speak  of  the  Middle  Ages  we  mean  this  second,  spiritual  and 
Christian  Rome,  in  conflict  with  the  Northern  tribes  of  Ger- 
mans, and  then  their  teacher;  the  mother  of  civilization; 
the  source  to  Western  nations  of  religion,  law,  and  order; 
of  learning,  art,  and  civic  institutions.  It  gave  to  the  mul- 
titude of  tribes  which  wandered  over,  or  settled  down  within 
the  boundaries  of  the  West,  from  Lithuania  to  Ireland,  from 
Illyria  to  Portugal,  and  from  Sicily  to  the  North  Cape,  a 
brain,  a  conscience,  and  imagination  which  at  length  trans- 
formed them  into  that  Christendom  which  Augustine  pictures 
in  his  City  of  God. 

The  account  of  the  sack  of  Rome  by  Alaric  and  his  Visi- 
goths must  be  read  in  the  classic  pages  of  Gibbon,  or  Hodg- 
kin's  Italy  and  her  Invaders.  Space  precludes  the  discus- 
sion here.  The  Visigoths  must  not  be  considered  as  bar- 
barian tribes  pure  and  simple.  They  were  of  the  finest  Ger- 
manic stock  and  had  been  converted  to  Arian  Christianity 
for  more  than  fifty  years  and  had  the  Bible  in  their  own 
language,  and  a  fairly  well-developed  Christian  priesthood. 


Papal  Monarchy  Succeeds  Roman  Empire         117 

The  terrible  picture  of  plundering,  burning,  rapine,  and  mur- 
der, drawn  by  ancient  writers,  must  have  been  grcath'  over- 
drawn or  Gaeseric  and  his  Vandals  would  have  found  nothing 
to  award  their  cupidity  a  generation  later.  The  pagan 
Romans  were  driven  out  or  destroyed.  Many  of  them  de- 
serted the  city,  taking  as  much  of  their  wealth  as  they  could 
carry.  They  wandered  over  the  East,  and  were  finally  lost 
from  sight.  During  the  sacking  of  the  city  Innocent  was 
absent,  having  accompanied  a  deputation  to  Ravenna,  to 
seek  some  protection  for  the  capitol.  When  he  finally  re- 
turned, Alaric  and  his  soldiers  had  accomplished  their  work 
and  passed  on  to  other  fields. 

But  Innocent  did  not  return  to  rule  over  a  desert,  says 
Milman:  "The  wonder,  which  is  expressed  at  the  rapid 
restoration  of  Rome,  shows  that  the  general  consternation 
and  awe  at  the  tidings  of  the  capture,  had  greatly  exag- 
gerated the  amount  both  of  damage  and  of  depopulation. 
Some  of  the  palaces  of  the  nobles,  who  had  fled  from  the  city, 
or  perished  in  the  siege,  may  have  remained  in  ruins ;  above 
all,  the  temples,  now  without  funds  to  repair  them  from  their 
confiscated  estates,  from  the  alienated  government,  or  from 
the  munificence  of  wealthy  worshipers,  would  be  left  exposed 
to  every  casual  injury,  and  fall  into  irremediable  dilapida- 
tion, unless  seized  and  appropriated  to  its  own  uses  by  the 
triumphant  faith.  Now  probably  began  the  slow  conversion 
of  the  heathen  fanes  into  Christian  churches.  The  capture 
of  Rome  by  Alaric  was  one  of  the  great  steps  by  which  the 
pope  arose  to  his  plenitude  of  power.  There  could  be  no 
question  that  from  this  time  the  greatest  man  in  Rome  was 
the  pope ;  he  alone  possessed  all  the  attributes  of  supremacy, 
the  reverence;  it  was  his  own  fault,  if  not  the  love  of  the  peo- 
ple. He  had  a  sacred  indefeasible  title ;  authority  unlimited, 
because  undefined;  wealth,  which  none  dare  to  usurp,  which 
multitudes  lavishly  contributed  to  increase  by  free-will  offer- 
ings ;  he  is  in  one  sense  a  Caesar,  whose  apotheosis  has  taken 
place  in  his  lifetime,  environed  by  his  Praetorian  guards,  his 
ecclesiastics,  on  whose  fidelity  and  obedience  he  may,  when 
once  seated  on  the  throne,  implicitly  rely ;  whose  edicts  are 
gradually  received  as  law ;  and  who  has  his  spiritual  Praetors 


118  The  History  of  Christianity 

and  Proconsuls  in  almost  every  part  of  Western  Christen- 
dom." 

In  the  spring  of  417  Innocent  died,  after  a  memorable 
reign  of  fifteen  years.  During  this  time  he  had  raised  the 
pontifical  throne  to  a  height  of  power  and  influence  which  it 
had  never  before  enjoyed.  Indeed,  it  was  he  who  shaped  the 
policy  of  the  Holy  See,  and  fixed  the  line  of  development  by 
which  it  came  in  the  Middle  Ages  to  something  like  the  leader- 
ship of  the  world.  It  was  he  who  first  dreamed  of  that  uni- 
versal ecclesiastical  supremacy  of  Rome  which  was  destined 
to  be  turned  later  into  sober  fact  by  his  successors,  who 
followed  in  the  pathway  which  he  himself  marked  out. 

Between  the  close  of  the  Apostolic  age  and  the  death  of 
Innocent  the  Roman  see  had  undergone  a  purely  natural 
process  of  development  similar  to  that  of  any  other  great 
historical  institution.  In  the  early  centuries  it  gives  no  in- 
dication of  its  own  self-consciousness  of  the  unique  origin  and 
almost  superhuman  destiny  which  have  since  been  claimed  for 
it.  While  Innocent  sat  in  the  Roman  Chair  a  change  was 
taking  place  in  the  character  of  the  claims  set  forth  by  its 
bishop.  By  taking  advantage  of  every  precedent  and  build- 
ing therefrom  an  imposing  hypothesis  from  a  line  of  reason- 
ing satisfactory  at  least  to  himself  "  Innocent  found  an  epis- 
copate in  Rome  and  left  a  Papacy."  This  was  due  to  no  new 
facts  but  rather  to  a  new  interpretation  of  the  fact.  The 
Petrine  succession  of  the  Bishops  of  Rome  was  generally  ac- 
cepted throughout  Christendom.  This  is  seen  in  the  writings 
of  Tertullian  and  Cyprian.  Of  this  Innocent  was  doubtless 
fully  aware  and  he  was  not  the  man  to  let  any  such  advantage 
slip  by  unappreciated.  When  he  wrote  his  letter  to  Vic- 
tricius  within  a  year  following  his  accession,  he  does  not 
justify  himself  for  so  doing  by  any  reference  to  spiritual 
prerogatives  which  were  his  as  the  successor  of  the  Prince  of 
the  apostles,  but  merely  pleads  a  decree  of  a  council,  as  the 
supreme  authority  in  all  ecclesiastical  matters.  "  This 
seemed  to  prove  quite  conclusively  that  although  the  Roman 
episcopate  of  the  apostle  teacher  was  received  as  an  unques- 
tioned fact  at  the  opening  of  the  sixth  century,  no  conclusion 
was   at  first  drawn  therefrom  as  to  a  spiritual  autocracy 


Innocent  I  119 

vested  in  the  Bishop  of  Rome."  After  the  lapse  of  twelve 
years,  full  of  momentous  events,  Innocent  writes  more  letters 
and  in  them  we  discover  a  startling  change.  To  Alexander, 
bishop  of  Antioch,  he  writes  confirming  liim  in  the  preroga- 
tive of  his  see  but  he  did  this  expressly  because  "  Saint  Peter 
had  sat  a  while  as  Bishop  there  before  he  transferred  his 
chair  to  Rome."  The  Petrine  episcopate  is  in  this  respect 
revealed  in  a  new  light,  "  as  bestowing  an  increased  measure 
of  executive  authority,  even  when  it  had  been  exercised  but 
for  a  short  season  and  in  a  transitional  kind  of  way."  Still 
more  definite  is  his  letter  to  the  Italian  bishop  Ducentius, 
written  a  year  later.  In  this  letter  Innocent  asserts  his 
claim  to  authority,  directly  based  upon  the  bequest  of  the 
Prince  of  the  apostles,  "  to  whom  and  his  successors  all  the 
churches  throughout  the  West  trace  their  origin;  and  as 
the  successor  of  their  common  founder  in  the  bishopric  of 
the  ancient  capital  of  the  world  the  writer  claims  to  exercise 
a  plenary  authority  over  all." 

Innocent  was  preeminently  the  man  of  his  time.  His  policy 
was  one  which  commended  itself  as  right  and  orthodox  and 
so  had  the  support  of  the  clergy  in  general,  as  well  as  the 
confidence  and  respect  if  not  the  love  of  the  common  people. 

We  must  now  halt  and  see  how  far  the  church  has  gone 
in  the  way  of  organization.  The  empire  was  divided  by  Con- 
stantine  for  purposes  of  administration  into  four  prefectures 
and  twelve  dioceses.  The  provinces  into  which  the  diocese 
was  divided  and  which  were  the  administrative  divisions  of  the 
metropolitan,  described  in  a  previous  chapter,  were  found 
to  be  too  small  for  practical  purposes,  in  the  turmoil  of  the 
Arian  controversy.  The  provincial  council,  presided  over  by 
the  metropolitan,  and  large  hierarchical  organizations,  were 
brought  into  use  to  cope  with  this  heres3\  In  the  East  the 
lines  of  the  political  diocese  were  followed.  The  bishop  of 
the  chief  city  of  the  diocese,  therefore,  was  raised  above  all 
other  metropolitans,  although  his  rights  varied  somewhat  in 
different  dioceses.  These  were  greatest  in  the  diocese  of 
Egypt  of  which  Alexandria  was  the  capital.  In  the  diocese 
of  Thrace,  the  newly  founded  city  of  Constantinople  became 
the  capital  in  place  of  Heraclea,  and  the  Bishop  of  Con- 


120  The  History  of  Christianity 

stantinople  became  the  diocesan  bishop.  This  diocesan  ar- 
rangement was  approved  by  the  council  of  Constantinople 
of  381,  and  diocesan  synods,  as  the  highest  ecclesiastical 
courts,  were  raised  above  the  councils  of  the  provinces. 
This  same  council  gave  to  the  Bishop  of  Constantinople  first 
rank  among  the  twelve  diocesan  bishops,  his  station  being 
second  only  to  that  of  Rome.  (Objected  to  by  Leo.)  The 
Council  of  Chalcedon,  in  451,  recognized  this  arrangement 
and  conferred,  in  addition,  the  right  to  receive  appeals  and 
complaints  from  the  whole  Eastern  church.  By  this  act 
new  Rome  was  placed  on  a  level  with  Ancient  Rome  in  real 
power.  Shortly  after  this  the  more  appropriate  title  of 
"  Patriarch  "  was  applied  exclusively  to  the  bishops  of  the 
five  most  distinguished  metropolitan  sees,  which  then  went 
under  the  name  of  patriarchates.  Besides  Rome,  Alexan- 
dria, and  Antioch,  Constantinople  was  also,  because  of  its 
political  importance,  raised  to  the  dignity  of  a  Patriarchal 
see.  Jerusalem  was  later  raised  to  Patriarchal  rank.  The 
boundaries  of  these  great  Patriarchates  were  generally  fixed 
by  those  of  the  political  divisions  of  the  empire.  But  dis- 
putes over  jurisdiction  and  priority  continually  arose.  (See 
map.) 

In  the  history  of  universal  Christianity  the  Pontificate  of 
X,eo  the  Great  is  one  of  the  great  landmarks.  Of  all  the 
^reat  ecclesiastical  sees  just  mentioned,  Rome  alone  main- 
tained something  of  the  sanctity  and  piety  belonging  to  the 
religion  of  Christ.  The  great  Eastern  patriarchates  were 
engaged  in  shameful  and  unseemly  strife  and  doing  less  than 
nothing  for  the  building  of  God's  kingdom  on  earth.  The 
Roman  empire  might  well  be  considered  as  ending  with 
Theodosius  the  Great,  as  the  boy  sovereigns  of  the  East  and 
West  were  but  puppets  in  the  hands  of  ambitious  conspira- 
tors. Hippo  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  Vandals  but 
shortly  after  the  death  of  Augustine. 

Leo,  like  Innocent,  was  a  Roman  of  good  family.  He  was 
early  dedicated  to  the  services  of  the  church  and,  while  yet 
a  youth,  succeeded  in  so  distinguishing  himself  as  to  gain 
the  attention  of  those  high  in  the  councils  of  the  church. 
While  yet  an  acolyte  he  was  sent  to  Africa  with  letters  con- 


Leo  as  a  Preacher  121 

demning  Pelagianism.  He  became  acquainted  with  St.  Au- 
gustine and  Bishop  AureHus  and  was  carried  along  by  these 
great  churchmen  into  a  participation  in  their  unseemly 
hatred  of  Pelagianism.  Upon  his  return  he  urged  upon 
Pope  Sixtus  the  persecution  of  Julianus.  Cassian  dedicated 
to  him  while  yet  a  deacon  his  work  on  the  Incarnation. 
Upon  the  death  of  Sixtus,  while  absent  from  Rome  on  an 
important  mission,  he  was  chosen  to  fill  the  vacant  Chair  of 
St.  Peter  by  the  unanimous  vote  of  all  Rome,  the  clergy,  the 
senate,  and  the  people.  He  immediately  assumed  the  duties 
of  the  high  office,  without  accustomed  expression  of  unfitness 
for  the  task,  and  with  absolute  self-confidence  in  his  own 
ability  and  training,  and  faith  in  God  and  assurance  that 
He  would  give  him  strength  to  fulfil  the  difficult  tasks.  Leo 
was  both  administrator  and  theologian,  and  he  had  already 
become  known  in  both  these  fields  before  his  election  to  the 
Papal  throne.  He  had  corresponded  with  Cyril  of  Alexan- 
dria and  John  Cassian,  with  both  on  important  matters.  He 
had  taken  a  deep  interest  in  the  Nestorian  controversy  and 
was  in  sympathy  with  the  two  leaders  of  the  enemies  of  Nes- 
torius.  Leo  may  also  be  styled  the  first  preacher  of  the 
West.  For  some  reason,  possibly  mixture  of  tongues,  more 
probably  the  lack  of  oratorical  ability,  preaching  was  not 
made  use  of  in  the  Latin  church.  This  was  in  strange  con- 
trast with  the  East  where  preaching  was  universal  in  the 
churches  and  was  the  most  certain  road  to  ecclesiastical  ad- 
vancement. The  bishops  of  all  the  great  churches  were  elo- 
quent preachers.  Nestorius  was  distinguished  as  an  elo- 
quent and  forceful  preacher  before  he  was  accused  of  heresy. 
Arius,  Cyril,  and  Theodoret  were  striking  examples  of  the 
eloquent  preacher.  John  Chrysostom  was  called  from  his 
pulpit  at  Antioch  to  the  See  of  Constantinople  because  his 
wonderful  eloquence  had  prepared  the  way.  Leo  must  have 
given  some  proof  of  his  power  as  a  speaker  before  he  was 
chosen  Pope.  There  are  ninety-six  genuine  sermons  of  Leo 
still  extant  to  bear  witness  to  his  unwonted  pulpit  activity. 
He  deals  mostly  with  the  cardinal  doctrines  of  the  Christian 
faith,  and  even  the  most  casual  glance  through  his  sermons 
fills  the  reader  with  wonder  that,  amid  his  many  other  cares. 


122  The  History  of  Christianity 

he  could  find  time  and  mental  detachment  necessary  to  their 
composition.  The  Incarnation,  Passion,  Resurrection,  and 
Ascension  of  our  Lord,  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  Doc- 
trine of  the  Trinity,  and  the  Person  of  Christ  are  some  of 
the  topics  with  which  he  deals.  These  sermons,  compared 
with  those  of  some  Eastern  divines  upon  the  same  subject, 
seem  rather  weak  and  prolix,  lacking  originality  and  force, 
but  they  reveal  the  earnest  and  simple  piety  of  the  man. 
His  concept  of  the  atonement  is  at  once  both  strange  and 
silly.  This,  he  claims,  was  effected  by  means  of  a  trick 
played  off  upon  the  devil,  who  mistook  Christ  for  a  sinner 
like  other  men,  and  treating  him  as  such  exceeded  his  rights. 
In  this  way  he  forfeited  his  claims  upon  man  and  was,  con- 
sequently, compelled  to  set  him  free.  Other  sermons,  while 
ascetic  in  type,  are  full  of  good  Roman  common  sense  and  in 
every  way  admirable.  Other  sermons  set  forth  very  clearly 
his  views  touching  the  foundations  of  the  church.  Leo  cus- 
tomarily preached  a  sermon  upon  each  anniversary  of  his 
accession.  In  these  he  set  forth  with  clearness  and  vigor 
the  grandeur  of  his  oflScial  prerogative  as  successor  of  the 
"  Prince  of  the  Apostles."  "  He  is  Peter  in  St.  Peter's 
chair  and  bears  full  responsibility  as  such.  Peter  in  a  sense 
lives  on  in  the  person  of  his  successors,  and  his  privilege  is 
the  abiding  possession  of  his  Apostolic  See.  Peter  alone  is 
the  rock  and  foundation  of  the  church,  the  Warden  of  the 
Celestial  Gate,  and  the  last  earthly  authority  in  all  questions 
of  binding  and  loosing.  To  Peter  it  was  that  our  Lord 
said,  '  I  have  prayed  for  you  that  your  faith  fail  not,'  though 
he  spoke  with  reference  to  a  peril  which  threatened  his  fel- 
low Apostles,  equally  with  Peter  himself :  whence  we  may  in- 
fer that  this  Apostle  was  the  object  of  his  Master's  especial 
care,  and  that  special  prayer  was  made  on  his  behalf  that 
by  his  firmness  in  confronting  temptation  his  colleagues  also 
might  be  rendered  firm.  Peter  it  was  who  was  singled  out 
for  the  commission  which  strengthened  his  brethren  and  to 
feed  the  flock  of  Christ.  Peter  is  therefore  the  Chief  Shep- 
herd who  is  set  over  the  shepherds  of  that  flock,  not  one  of 
whom  has  any  business  which  is  not  his  business  as  well.     He 


Leo  as  a  Preacher  123 

is  at  once  the  pattern  and  the  source  of  all  ecclesiastical 
authority." 

In  other  words  Peter  was  appointed  by  Christ  as  prince  of 
the  Universal  Church  with  power  to  "  bind  and  loose  "  as 
seemed  best  to  him.  As  to  the  city  of  Rome,  upon  the  me- 
morial day  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul  he  gave  the  following: 

"  These  are  the  men,  O  Rome,  through  whom  the  gospel  of 
Christ  hath  shone  upon  thee.  These  are  thy  holy  fathers 
and  thy  true  shepherds,  who  have  set  thee  in  heavenly  king- 
doms far  more  gloriously  than  those  who  laid  the  first  foun- 
dations of  thy  walls.  These  are  they  who  have  advanced 
thee  to  such  glory  that,  as  a  holy  nation,  a  chosen  people, 
a  priestly  and  royal  state,  thou  shouldst  hold  a  broader  sway 
in  faith  of  God  than  in  dominion  of  the  earth.  Whatever 
the  victories  that  have  borne  forward  thy  right  of  empire 
by  land  and  sea,  yet  less  the  toil  of  war  has  yielded  thee  than 
the  peace  of  Christ.  For  the  good,  just,  and  almighty  God, 
who  never  denied  his  mercy  to  human  kind,  and  always  by 
his  abundant  benefits,  has  instructed  all  men  in  the  knowl- 
edge of  himself,  by  a  more  secret  counsel  and  a  deeper  love 
took  pity  on  the  willing  blindness  of  wanderers  and  their 
proneness  to  evil,  by  sending  his  Word,  equal  and  co-eternal 
with  himself.  And  that  the  fruit  of  this  unspeakable  grace 
might  be  shed  through  all  the  earth,  he  with  divine  foresight 
prepared  the  Roman  realm,  whose  growth  was  carried  to  lim- 
its that  bordered  upon  the  universe  of  all  nations  on  every 
side.  But  this  city,  knowing  not  the  Author  of  her  great- 
ness, while  queen  of  almost  every  nation,  was  slave  to  the 
errors  of  every  people,  and  seemed  to  herself  to  have  attained 
great  faith,  because  she  had  spurned  no  falsehood.  And  so, 
the  more  strictly  she  was  held  in  bonds  by  Satan,  so  much 
the  more  marvellously  she  is  set  free  by  Christ." 

We  need  search  no  farther  for  the  views  of  Leo,  nor  can 
we  doubt  his  good  faith  in  putting  them  forth.  He  speaks 
with  utmost  conviction,  and  as  a  man  who  has  the  undoubted 
right  to  speak  as  he  does.  His  sermons  contain  enough  to 
give  the  person  who  reads  them  a  very  fair  conception  of 
the  extent  to  which  Leo  in  all  good  faith  magnified  his  office 


124*  The  History  of  Christianity 

in  his  pulpit.  His  faith  in  the  "  Divine  right  of  Popes  "  was 
without  hmit,  but  honest.  Let  us  now  see  how  he  put  his 
theory  into  practice. 

Leo  was  the  very  soul  of  orthodoxy.  He  could  not  live 
long  in  his  position  without  finding  himself  in  conflict  with 
one  or  another  of  the  various  heresies  by  which  the  peace  of 
the  church  was  disturbed.  Pelagianism  was  dying,  but  not 
yet  dead.  This  heresy,  through  the  influence  of  Augustine, 
was  bitterly  hated  by  Leo.  Septimus,  bishop  of  Altena, 
wrote  to  inform  the  pope  of  certain  irregularities  which  were 
taking  place  in  the  province  of  Aquileia,  to  which  he  be- 
longed. He  reported  "  that  discipline  was  lax.  Pelagian 
clergy  were  being  admitted  into  Church  fellowship  without 
renunciation  of  their  errors,  and  no  check  placed  upon  their 
activities."  To  Septimus  Leo  replied  in  cordial  terms,  ex- 
pressing warm  appreciation  of  his  careful  shepherding  of 
the  "  flock  of  Christ."  To  the  Metropolitan  of  Aquileia  he 
also  wrote  in  a  most  peremptory  tone,  "  charging  him  to 
take  prompt  measure  to  remedy  what  was  amiss  and  by  '  the 
authority  of  our  commission,'  to  assemble  a  provincial  coun- 
cil, and  to  compel  all  clergy,  of  whatever  rank,  who  had  been 
received  from  among  the  Pelagians  into  the  Catholic  com- 
munion, to  publicly  adjure  their  errors,  and  openly  to  accept 
all  conciliar  decrees  which  have  been  ratified  by  the  Apostolic 
See  for  the  purpose  of  uprooting  this  heresy."  This  letter 
in  tone  is  that  of  a  superior  to  an  inferior,  of  a  captain  to 
his  lieutenant. 

The  next  case  is  one  arising  at  his  door.  This  is  the  heresy 
of  Manichaeism  (sketch  in  Chapter  XVII).  The  hand 
of  Leo  lay  heavy  upon  the  whole  body  of  these  misbelievers ; 
"  Some  were  treated  with  lenity,  being  admitted  to  penance 
and  for-swearing  their  errors ;  others  were  driven  into  exile ; 
others  fled,  being  followed,  however,  by  letters  in  which  the 
pope  urged  upon  the  Italian  bishops  the  necessity  of  rigor- 
ous search  being  made  for  the  fugitives."  Behind  the  pope 
stood  the  emperor,  Valentinian  III,  who,  at  the  request  of 
Leo,  "  issued  an  edict  confirmatory  of  those  laws  of  his 
predecessors  by  which  the  Manichaeans  were  to  be  banished 
from  the  whole  world.     They  were  to  be  liable  to  all  the 


Clash  Between  Leo  and  Hilary  of  Aries  1^5 

penalties  of  sacrilege.  It  was  a  public  offense.  The  ac- 
cusers were  not  to  be  liable  to  the  charge  of  delation.  It 
was  a  crime  to  conceal  or  harbor  them.  All  Manichaeans 
were  to  be  expelled  from  the  army,  and  not  permitted  to  in- 
habit cities ;  they  could  neither  make  testaments  nor  receive 
bequests."  The  cause  of  the  severity  of  the  law  was  their 
flagrant  and  disgraceful  immorality. 

The  next  question  of  issue  was  one  of  jurisdiction  between 
the  pope  and  Hilary,  the  Metropolitan  of  Aries.  Papal  and 
metropolitan  authority  now  clashed  and  men  at  the  head  of 
these  two  forces  were  of  much  the  same  temper.  Hilary  was 
born  of  a  noble  family  and  described  as  "  endowed  with  every 
public  and  private  virtue."  He  was  induced  by  his  friend 
Honorius  to  give  up  his  worldly  prospects  of  wealth  and 
political  advancement,  and  to  retire  to  the  monastery  of 
Lerins.  Shortly  after  this  move  on  Hilary's  part,  Honorius 
was  elevated  to  the  archbishopric  of  Aries.  Upon  his  death- 
bed he  sent  for  Hilary,  and  named  him  as  his  successor ;  this 
nomination  was  ratified  and  Hilary,  much  against  his  will, 
was  compelled  to  accept  the  office,  in  429.  For  the  next  fif- 
teen years  he  filled  the  responsible  position  with  great  suc- 
cess, bemeaning  himself  as  "  a  man  of  peace  and  lofty  spirit, 
fearless  in  rebuking  whatever  was  amiss,  and  resolute  to 
maintain  order  and  discipline."  Like  Leo,  Hilary  did  not 
underestimate  his  authority  as  Metropolitan  Bishop  of  Aries. 
There  was  a  tradition  that  Trophemius,  the  companion  of 
Paul,  was  the  first  Bishop  of  Aries,  and  so  this  city  was 
the  starting-point  and  headquarters  for  Christianity  in  Gaul. 
On  the  strength  of  this  tradition  the  bishops  of  Aries  early 
showed  a  disposition  to  look  upon  their  city  as  being  some- 
what more  than  a  mere  provincial  metropolis.  For  this 
same  reason  they  looked  upon  themselves  as  "  the  rightful 
primates  of  Gaul  enjoying  an  authority  patriarchal  rather 
than  metropolitan  in  character."  Pope  Zosimus  had  recog- 
nized this  claim  on  the  part  of  Aries  and  had  laid  it  upon  the 
other  churches  of  Gaul  to  recognize  the  superior  jurisdiction 
of  the  Bishop  of  Aries.  But  Boniface  seems  to  have  with- 
drawn this  recognition  of  his  predecessor.  Aries,  however, 
persisted  in  its  claim  and  Hilary  acted  upon  this  wider  au- 


126  The  History  of  Christianity 

thority  and  took  to  himself  powers  which  the  other  bishops 
refused  to  recognize.  This  trouble  culminated  when  Hilary, 
in  company  with  Germanus  of  Auxerre,  was  making  a  round 
of  visitations.  A  complaint  was  brought  to  Hilary  against 
one  Celidonius,  bishop  of  Besan9on,  on  the  ground  that  "  he 
was  disqualified  for  the  Episcopal  office  which  he  held,  by 
having  married  a  widow  while  yet  a  layman,  and  also  having, 
as  civil  magistrate,  passed  sentence  of  death,"  Hilary  there- 
upon summoned  a  provincial  council  at  Besan9on  (prob- 
ably) which  deposed  Celidonius.  But  this  bishop  declined  to 
step  down  and  out.  Instead  he  went  to  Rome  and  placed  his 
case  before  the  pope.  Hilary,  hearing  of  this  move  on  the 
part  of  Celidonius,  immediately  set  out  on  foot  to  Rome  and 
despite  the  severity  of  the  winter,  made  his  way  to  the 
capital.  He  at  once  sought  out  Leo  and  informed  him  that 
he  had  not  come  "  to  plead  at  his  tribunal,  nor  to  accuse, 
but  to  protest  against  any  infringements  of  his  rights." 
Notwithstanding  this  protest  of  Hilary,  a  local  council  was 
convened  to  hear  the  case.  Hilary  was  permitted  to  have  a 
seat  in  this  council,  but  was  called  upon  to  rebut  evidence 
that  was  placed  against  him,  thus  practically  placing  him  on 
trial.  He  proceeded  to  speak  his  mind  to  Leo  touching  his 
procedure  "  without  fear  and  a  haughtiness  equal  to  that 
of  the  pope  himself."  This  did  the  cause  no  good.  The 
conclusion  of  the  case  was  practically  reached  before  the 
trial  was  on.  The  sentence  of  the  council  of  Besan^on  was 
reversed  and  Celidonius  was  reinstated.  This  act  on  the 
part  of  Leo  was  a  high-handed  assumption  of  power,  and 
was  directly  in  the  face  of  the  accepted  canons  of  various 
church  councils.  The  fifty-third  canon  of  Elvira  and  the 
sixteenth  canon  of  Aries  I  asserted  that  the  restoration  of 
an  excommunicate  could  only  be  legitimately  given  by  the 
bishop  who  had  excommunicated  him.  The  fifth  canon  of 
Nicea  declares  "  that  in  cases  in  which  the  penalty  of  ex- 
communication has  been  imposed  it  must  be  recognized  by  all 
other  bishops."  The  acts  of  many  other  councils  are  in 
harmony  with  those  cited.  Leo  could  never  justify  himself 
upon  any  other  grounds  than  his  own  theory  of  the  primacy 
of  St.  Peter.     His  was  an  arbitrary  assumption  of  appellate 


Edict  of  Valentinian  III  127 

jurisdiction  without  an}'  limitation.  A  second  case  seems  to 
have  been  placed  against  Hilar}'  almost  immediately  upon  the 
settlement  of  that  of  Celidonius.  For  this  there  is  no  evi- 
dence save  the  letters  of  Leo.  Projectus,  bishop  of  Die,  in 
the  province  of  Treves,  brought  an  information  against  Hi- 
lary to  the  pope.  He  stated  that  while  he  lay  sick,  Hilary 
usurped  the  authority  in  a  pro\ance  other  than  his  own,  and 
without  regard  to  the  usual  forms  of  canonical  election,  had 
consecrated  another  in  his  room.  There  is  no  statement 
on  the  part  of  Hilary  of  this  case,  and  no  evidence  produced 
to  prove  the  charge.  On  its  face  it  looks  like  a  trumped 
up  charge,  unworthy  of  consideration,  but  Projectus  won  his 
case  before  Leo,  and  Hilary  was  removed  from  his  office  as 
metropolitan  and  forbidden  to  take  any  further  part  in  any 
ordination. 

Leo  was  uneasy  in  his  mind,  no  doubt,  regarding  his  action 
in  the  case  of  Hilary.  Calmer  judgment  may  have  left  him 
dissatisfied  with  his  hasty  actions.  To  make  the  way  per- 
fectly clear  he  had  access  to  the  imperial  arm.  He  influ- 
enced the  emperor  Valentinian  to  put  forth  an  edict,  July  8, 
445,  which  is  as  follows :  "  A  Holy  Council  has  confirmed 
the  primacy  of  the  Apostolic  See  from  regard  to  the  merit 
of  St.  Peter  and  the  dignity  of  the  city  of  Rome ;  so  that  no 
one  should  presume  to  do  aught  unpermitted  by  her  author- 
ity. Hilary  is  denounced  as  guilty  of  contumacy  and  law- 
lessness, and  as  a  disturber  of  the  peace  of  the  churches. 
This  is  a  civil  as  well  as  an  ecclesiastical  offense,  which  has 
been  duly  investigated  by  the  pope,  whose  sentence  would  be 
valid  even  without  imperial  sanction.  But,  inasmuch  as 
Hilary  has  offended  against  the  majesty  of  the  empire  as  well 
as  against  the  Apostolic  See,  the  emperor's  attention  has 
been  called  thereto  and  he  now  reminds  Hilary  that  to  the 
mildness  of  the  Roman  Pontiff  alone  it  is  due  that  he  still 
bears  fhe  name  of  bishop.  He  and  others  were  alike  warned 
to  heed  this  perpetual  edict,  that  it  shall  not  be  lawful  for 
bishops  in  Gaul,  and  elsewhere,  contrary  to  ancient  custom, 
to  do  aught  without  the  authority  of  the  venerable  pope  of 
the  Eternal  City,  whose  enactments  shall  be  laws  for  all. 
If  any  bishop  summoned  for  trial  by  the  pope,  neglect  to 


128  The  History  of  Christianity 

attend,  he  shall  be  compelled  to  appear  at  once  by  the  Gov- 
ernor of  the  province  to  which  he  belongs." 

It  must  be  admitted  that  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
pope,  he  won  a  decided  victory  in  his  contest  with  Hilary. 
The  emperor  had  recognized  him  as  holding  authority  co- 
ordinate with  himself.  It  would  seem  by  this  that  Peter  and 
Augustus  had  agreed  together  to  share  the  "  lordship  of  the 
world."  This  celebrated  edict  of  V alentinian,  rather  than 
our  Lord's  supposed  commission  to  the  Prince  of  the  Apos- 
tles, must  he  regarded  as  the  real  starting-point  of  the 
mediaeral  Papacy. 

In  447,  Leo  was  again  engaged  in  a  conflict  with  heresy. 
Seventy  years  before  the  Priscillian  heresy  had  arisen  in 
Spain  and  in  spite  of  numerous  efforts  to  stamp  it  out,  in- 
cluding the  martyrdom  of  its  author,  it  had  continued  to 
gain  converts.  The  country  had  been  overrun  by  the  Suevi 
and  authoritative  action  on  the  part  of  the  church  was  im- 
possible. A  Spanish  bishop,  Turribius  of  Astorga,  wrote  a 
letter  to  the  pope,  laying  the  whole  matter  before  him  and 
seeking  assistance  and  advice.  Leo  was  delighted  to  have  the 
opportunity  to  do  something  in  the  matter,  and  wrote  to  the 
bishop  at  length  dealing  with  many  points  of  the  Priscillian 
heresy  and  expounding  orthodox  views.  He  concludes  with 
directions  "  that  a  General  Council  of  Spain  should  be  sum- 
moned to  deal  with  the  whole  matter,  and  mentions  the  four 
provinces  of  Tarragona,  Cartagena,  Lusitania,  and  Galicia, 
whose  bishops  are  being  advised  of  this  plan.  But  Turribius 
is  at  the  same  time  informed  that,  if  the  holding  of  a  general 
council  should  for  any  reason  prove  impracticable,  it  would 
be  well  for  him  to  assemble  a  provincial  council  from  Galicia 
alone  and  to  deal  with  the  matter  there."  Leo's  instructions 
were  carried  out  in  so  far  as  possible.  Two  large  councils 
were  held  and  the  Priscillian  doctrines  were  condemned. 

There  are  several  other  cases  where  Leo  shows  his  power  in 
settling  disputes  and  asserting  his  authority  throughout  the 
West,  but  the  ones  given  are  sufficient  to  prove  his  purpose, 
activity,  and  success. 

In  the  meantime  conditions  were  such  in  the  East  as  to 
force  the  attention  of  the  Western  church.     The  heresy  of 


The  Tovie  of  Leo  129 

Nestorius  had  been  the  subject  of  a  heated  controversy  in 
the  previous  generation  and  had  been  condemned  at  the  gen- 
eral council  of  Ephesus  in  431.  Cyril  had  been  the  invet- 
erate opponent  and  bitter  enemy  of  Nestorius.  Of  the 
friends  and  champions  of  Cyril  none  was  more  emphatic  than 
Eutyches  of  Constantinople.  (See  Chapter  XVII.)  Euty- 
ches  wrote  to  Leo,  in  448,  regretting  that  Nestorianism  had 
revived  and  was  causing  trouble.  Leo  replied  to  him,  on 
June  1,  applauding  his  zeal  and  orthodoxy.  The  next  word 
which  reached  him  from  the  East  was  that  Eutyches  had 
been  condemned  as  a  heretic  by  a  Constantinopolitan  council. 
From  the  decision  of  this  council  Eutyches  appealed  and 
was  aided  by  Pulcheria,  the  sister  of  the  emperor,  Theodosius 
II.  A  council  was  assembled  in  Constantinople  at  which 
Eutyches  was  accused  by  Eusebius  of  Dorylaeum,  as  denying 
the  two  natures  in  Christ.  Eutyches  failed  to  appear  upon 
summons.  Summons  was  repeated  the  third  time  before  he 
finally  appeared  accompanied  by  a  mob  of  soldiers  and 
monks.  After  a  stormy  and  tumultuous  debate,  Eusobius 
finally  forced  Eutyches  to  the  confession  that  "  Christ  was 
of  two  natures  before  the  union,  but  after  the  union  I  ac- 
knowledge but  one."  He  was  immediately  condemned  and 
degraded  from  all  priestly  ofl^ce,  and  thrust  out  of  the  com- 
munion of  the  church.  Eutyches  wrote  to  Leo,  stating  his 
case  and  asking  aid.  Flavian  did  the  same,  but  the  latter's 
letter  never  seemed  to  have  reached  Leo.  The  emperor  also 
wrote  to  Leo.  Finally  word  from  Flavian  reached  the  pope 
and  he  immediately  made  himself  master  of  the  evidence  in 
the  case.  He  sent  a  brief  letter  to  Flavian  telling  him  that 
he  would  later  send  a  complete  letter.  In  the  following 
month  he  wrote  the  promised  letter,  one  destined  to  literary 
immortality  as  one  of  the  few  letters  which  take  a  prominent 
place  in  history.  It  is  known  as  the  Tome  of  Leo.  While 
addressed  to  an  individual  it  really  was  written  to  the  entire 
church,  and  is  a  solemn  pronouncement  upon  the  doctrinal 
question  at  issue.  It  seems  to  have  been  intended  for  formal 
presentation  to  the  General  Council.  The  chief  bishop  of 
the  West  undertook  to  put  forth  a  statement  of  the  true 
faith  with  respect  to  the  grave  matters  in  dispute,  and  this 


130  The  History  of  Christianity 

met  the  hearty  approval  of  the  orthodox  throughout  the 
world.  And  this  statement  was  generally  accepted  as  an  au- 
thoritative statement.  And  this  was  true,  because  the  Tome 
stood  firm  by  reason  of  its  intrinsic  value  and  not  because  of 
the  position  of  the  Bishop  of  Rome. 

At  the  fourth  session  of  the  Council,  the  Tome  of  Leo  was 
taken  up  for  discussion  and  was  finally  accepted  by  the 
whole  Council.  This  may  well  bring  us  to  the  close  of  the 
constructive  work  of  this  truly  great  man.  "  They  were 
the  critical  acts  of  his  sovereignty ;  and  they  have  sketched, 
in  vigorous  outline,  the  pretensions  of  the  Pontificate,  which 
have  been  continually  reasserted,  in  precisely  the  same  direc- 
tion and  general  terms,  doAvn  to  our  day.  Nothing  on  earth 
has  been  so  consistent  or  persistent  as  this  ecclesiastical  pol- 
icy of  Rome.  Whatever  we  may  think  about  it  now,  it  had 
its  uses  and  necessities  once;  and  we  shall  see  them  the  more 
plainly  as  we  get  deeper  into  the  shadow  of  barbarian  times, 
and  then  into  the  twilight  of  Feudalism." 

In  the  lives  of  Innocent  I  and  Leo,  we  watch  as  it  were 
the  process  by  which  that  enormous  fabric  of  ecclesiastical 
power  was  woven,  thread  by  thread,  till  it  seemed  to  wrap 
inseparably,  like  the  membrane  of  a  living  body,  every  limb 
and  interior  organ  of  the  great  structure  of  mediaeval  civi- 
lization. It  is  here  that  we  see  the  process,  but  we  see  it  im- 
perfectly. "  The  unity  of  counsel  in  multiplicity  of  opera- 
tions, which  we  call  Catholicism, —  apparently  as  strong 
to-day,  in  its  own  sphere,  as  a  thousand  years  ago,  and  as 
able  to  send  its  servants  to  their  post  in  hamlet  or  forest  as 
then,  as  little  afraid  as  then  of  sword  or  fire  or  torture  or 
starvation,  that  great  wonder  of  human  histor}^  the  discipline 
of  a  vast  population,  like  an  army  loyal  to  one  flag  and  obe- 
dient to  one  word  of  command, —  has  been  the  task  of  many 
ages  and  many  men.  In  the  fifteen  centuries  of  its  existence 
it  has  produced  enormous  good  and  enormous  evil.  But  it  is 
justice  to  the  name  of  Leo  to  say  that  the  ideal  good,  without 
the  inseparable  evil,  was  what  lay  in  his  heart  and  made  his 
strength;  and  to  recognize  him  as  the  one  man,  in  that  day 
of  terror  and  despair,  who  was  wise  enough  and  strong 
enough  to  do  its  necessary  task." 


CHAPTER  XXV 

MOHAMMED    AND    HIS    TEACHINGS 

ARABIA,  from  its  position  and  physical  conformation, 
was  left  practically  free  from  the  inroads  of  foreign 
arms.  While  other  countries  more  accessible  were  overrun 
and  made  subject  to  foreigners,  Arabia,  throughout  the  cen- 
turies, maintained  its  independence.  Situated  between  the 
Red  Sea  and  the  Persian  Gulf,  connected  with  Africa  only 
by  a  narrow  isthmus,  and  with  Asia  by  a  frontier  most  un- 
favorable for  military  operations,  it  was  by  nature  protected 
from  the  envy  and  rapacity  of  the  great  nations  which  sur- 
rounded it.  Then,  too,  it  offered  little  to  tempt  the  cupidity 
of  its  neighbors.  For  the  most  part  it  was  a  waste  of  sand 
and  rock. 

The  country  falls  naturally  into  three  divisions,  a  north- 
ern, a  central,  and  a  southern.  The  northern  includes  the 
area  between  the  Midian  coast  on  the  west  and  the  head  of 
the  Persian  Gulf  on  the  east,  a  desert  tract  throughout, 
stony  in  the  north,  sandy  in  the  south,  but  furnishing  at  cer- 
tain seasons  of  the  year  excellent  pasturage.  The  popula- 
tion is  nomad  and  pastoral.  The  central  zone  includes  He- 
jaz,  Nijd  and  El  Hasa.  Much  of  this  region  is  a  dry,  stony 
or  sandy  steppe  with  few  rivers  or  watering  places,  and  only 
occupied  by  nomad  tribes ;  but  the  great  wadis  which  inter- 
cept it  contain  many  fertile  stretches  of  alluvial  soil.  These 
are  cultivated  quite  extensively  and  support  a  large  popula- 
tion with  several  large  towns  and  numerous  villages.  The 
third  or  southern  division  contains  the  highland  plateaus  of 
Asia  and  Yemen  in  the  west  and  Akhbar  in  the  east.  These 
have  a  temperate  climate  owing  to  their  great  elevation  and 
their  proximity  to  the  sea.  By  reason  of  this  and  their  gen- 
eral fertility,  this  portion  of  the  country  is  known  as  Arabia 
Felix.     The  popiilation  is  settled  and  agricultural,  and  the 

131 


132  The  History  of  Christianity 

soil,  wherever  the  rainfall  is  sufficient,  is  productive.  Coffee 
and  dates  are  the  chief  products.  The  Batina  coast  of 
Oman,  irrigated  by  the  mountain  streams  of  Akhbar,  is  the 
most  fertile  district  in  the  peninsula ;  Hadramut  too  contains 
many  large  and  prosperous  villages,  and  the  torrents  from 
the  Yemen  highlands  fertilize  several  oases  in  the  Tehema 
or  lowlands  of  the  western  and  southern  coast.  These  favor- 
able conditions,  however,  do  not  reach  far  inland  as  the  lack 
of  rainfall  brings  the  desert  very  near  to  the  fertile  fields  of 
the  west  and  east.  A  waste  of  sand  and  rock  burning  "  like 
molten  iron  beneath  a  firmament  of  brass  "  and  frequently 
engulfing  caravans  and  even  armies  beneath  its  treacherous 
surface,  and  a  wild  nomad  race  which  wandered  to  and  fro 
over  a  pathless  desert  and  vanished  from  view  as  an  enemy 
appeared,  offered  little  inducement  to  conquerors.  Long 
streaks  of  scanty  pasturage  which  gleamed  upon  the  slopes 
of  the  mountains,  running  parallel  to  the  two  gulfs ;  the  vine 
or  palm,  which  here  and  there  had  been  planted,  by  human 
labor,  beside  the  wild  tamarind  and  acacia,  the  only  natural 
products  of  that  arid  land ;  these  were  not  treasures  to  tempt 
the  haughty  king  of  Persia. 

Arabia  has  an  area  of  1,200,000  square  miles,  sufficient  to 
make  thirty-six  states  the  size  of  Indiana,  or  almost  any  of 
our  western  states  save  Texas. 

The  people  inhabiting  the  Arabian  peninsula  were  mem- 
bers of  the  great  Semitic  race,  closely  related  to  the  Jews. 
Tradition  has  always  represented  them  as  a  wild  and  rugged 
people.  Ammianus  Marcellinus,  a  rugged  old  Roman  soldier, 
whose  history  has  been  praised  by  Gibbon  and  widely  made 
use  of,  gives  us  a  very  graphic  and  authentic  description  of 
them  as  follows :  "  The  Saracens,  whose  friendship  and  hos- 
tility were  to  us  alike  undesirable,  rushing  hither  and  thither, 
plundered  in  a  moment  whatever  they  could  lay  their  hands 
on:  just  like  a  band  of  rapacious  kites,  who,  when  they  catch 
a  glimpse  of  their  prey,  swoop  down  upon  it  like  lightning, 
and  are  off  in  a  moment  if  they  miss  their  mark.  Among 
these  tribes,  wliich  extend  from  Assyria  to  the  cataracts  of 
the  Nile  and  the  confines  of  the  Blumnyae,  all  are  alike  war- 
riors, and  half  naked,  their  only  covering  being  a  colored 


Arabia  and  the  Arabs  133 

cloak  reaching  to  the  loins.  By  the  help  of  their  swift 
horses,  and  camels  of  active  frame,  in  peace  and  war  alike, 
they  scour  the  whole  country,  to  its  most  opposite  limits. 
No  man  among  them  ever  puts  his  hand  to  the  plough,  plants 
a  tree,  or  seeks  a  livelihood  by  cultivating  the  soil.  They 
wander  everlastingly  over  regions  lying  far  and  wide  apart, 
without  a  home,  without  fixed  settlement  or  laws.  The  same 
clime  never  contents  them  long,  nor  are  they  ever  satisfied 
"with  the  occupation  of  a  single  district.  Their  life  is  one 
perpetual  motion.  Their  wives  they  take  on  hire,  and  keep 
with  them  for  a  time  fixed  by  previous  arrangement ;  and  as 
this  is  a  sort  of  wedlock,  the  bride  brings  to  her  future  mas- 
ter a  spear  and  a  tent  with  the  privilege  of  leaving  him  after 
some  specific  day,  should  such  be  her  pleasure.  The  licen- 
tious passion  of  both  sexes  is  incredible.  So  wide  are  their 
"wanderings,  and  so  uninterrupted  throughout  their  whole 
lives  that  a  woman  weds  in  one  spot,  gives  birth  to  her  child 
in  another,  and  brings  up  her  family  far  away  from  either, 
"without  ever  being  permitted  to  enjoy  an  opportunity  for 
rest.  All,  without  exception,  live  upon  the  flesh  of  wild  ani- 
mals ;  they  have  milk  in  abundance  for  their  support,  vege- 
tables of  all  sorts,  and  such  birds  as  they  are  enabled  to  cap- 
ture by  fouling.  The  majority  of  them  we  have  seen  to  be 
entirely  ignorant  of  the  use  of  corn  and  wine.  Thus  much 
of  this  pernicious  race  of  people." 

This  is  a  fair  description  of  the  race  which  furnished  the 
material  for  Mohammed's  great  religious  experiment.  The 
national  characteristics  depicted  above  furnish  some  expla- 
nation of  the  marv^ellous  success  of  the  Mohammedan  inva- 
sions. A  certain  fixedness  of  resolve,  a  strength  of  will  which 
easily  degenerates  into  stiff-necked  stubbornness  and  obsti- 
nacy, united  to  a  warm  and  brilliant,  though  limited  imag- 
ination, seems  to  mark  the  Semitic  mind.  This  power  of 
fixed  purpose  united  to  an  imaginative  tendency  has  ever 
proved  itself  capable  of  engendering  a  religious  exaltation 
which  becomes  a  fervent  and  operative  faith,  in  its  most 
favorable  development  such  as  that  of  the  Israelites,  but 
which  may  easily  break  forth  into  terrible  fanaticism  when 
misdirected  or  debased.     The  qualities  which  characterized 


134?  The  History  of  Christianity 

the  Jew  throughout  his  entire  history  are  as  strongly  marked 
in  his  kinsman,  the  Semitic  Arab.  "  The  same  scorn  of  the 
stranger,  the  same  indomitable  zeal  and  national  pride,  the 
same  headlong  faitli,  which,  regardless  of  human  chances, 
stormed  the  strongholds  of  Phoenician  giants  and  trampled 
on  the  necks  of  Cananitish  kings,  were  shown  in  after  years, 
by  the  invincible  zealots  who  scourged  alike  the  Persian,  the 
Greek,  the  Roman,  the  Visigoth,  and  the  Frank,  and  shouted 
the  watchword  of  the  Prophet  before  the  walls  of  Damascus, 
Constantinople,  Alexandria,  Toledo,  and  Tours." 

The  Arabians  had  an  almost  unbroken  tradition  of  inde- 
pendence. This  fostered  their  inherent  obstinacy  and  pride, 
and  gave  them  the  spirit  of  self-confidence  Avhich  is  so  great 
a  factor  in  victory.  The  discipline  of  the  desert  life  added  to 
the  hardihood  and  activity  which  enabled  them  to  overcome 
obstacles  that  were  insuperable  to  more  organized  armies. 

But  still  other  forces  contributed  their  share  to  the  same 
result  and  increased  the  energy  of  the  original  impulse  by 
which  these  isolated  bands  of  herdsmen  and  shepherds  were 
massed  and  turned  loose  upon  the  outside  world.  The  dan- 
gers of  navigation  upon  the  Red  Sea  made  Arabia  the  great 
thoroughfare  for  the  commerce  of  the  ancient  world.  The 
treasures  of  India  and  Abyssinia  were  transported  in  Arabian 
caravans ;  the  coin  of  Mesopotamia,  the  steel  of  Damascus, 
the  pearls  of  the  Persian  Gulf,  gems  from  the  Indian  moun- 
tains, the  gums  and  aromatics  of  the  seaboard  of  the  South- 
ern Ocean,  daily  passed  before  the  eyes  of  these  desert  chil- 
dren. While  this  Avild  man  sometimes  aided  in  the  labors 
of  commerce,  his  heart  was  set  on  rapine  and  on  war.  Bril- 
liant opportunities  for  plunder  were  open  to  him  and  he  did 
not  neglect  them.  Says  the  Roman  writer,  Pliny :  "  The 
innumerable  tribes  of  this  nation  are  equally  divided  between 
brigandage  and  trade."  This  national  instinct  became  a 
powerful  auxiliary  to  charms  of  ambition  and  territorial 
conquest.  A  race  of  robbers  readily  obeyed  the  call  which 
summoned  them  to  the  plunder  of  the  world. 

But  although  this  national  characteristic  doubtless  had  a 
great  influence,  yet  we  must  look  further  for  the  dominating 
cause.     This  was  the  state  of  religion  in  Arabia  and  the 


Arabia  and  the  Arabs  135 

neighboring  countries.  It  will  occur  to  the  thoughtful  stu- 
dent of  history  that  a  revolution  such  as  took  place  must 
have  been  preceded  by  a  strange  condition  of  belief  and  wor- 
ship in  the  country  where  it  so  suddenly  triumphed ;  and 
such  was  the  fact.  There  lay  back  of  the  religion  of  the 
Arabs  a  belief  in  one  god,  but  this  had  been  overlaid  with 
varied  superstitions,  and  a  grovelling  idolatry,  confused  and 
contradictory  without  any  of  the  grace  and  fancy  of  the 
Greeks,  or  the  subtle  symbolism  of  Egypt  that  had  long 
been  the  worship  of  the  Arabian  peninsula.  Three  hundred 
and  sixty  idols  of  men  or  brute  animals  were  ranged  along 
the  walls  of  the  Caaba  when  INIoharmned  proclaimed,  in  that 
great  national  temple,  the  unity  of  God.  Each  of  these 
idols  no  doubt  represented  a  superstition  prevailing  in  some 
particular  tribe,  and  accepted  with  comprehensive  indiffer- 
ence within  the  walls  of  the  sacred  edifice,  which  contained 
the  black  stone  supposed  to  have  fallen  down  from  heaven. 
This  was  a  black  quadrangle  block,  worshipped  for  many 
centuries  at  Mecca  and,  according  to  tradition,  the  object 
of  human  sacrifice.  But  as  these  idolatrous  cults  were  los- 
ing their  power  and  authority,  a  further  impulse  was  given 
to  confusion  by  the  contradictions  and  enmity  of  the  four 
great  religions  which  then  existed  in  the  world  and  which  had 
b}'  this  time  approached  and  entered  Arabia  from  different 
quarters.  Sabaism,  the  worship  of  the  heavens,  had  lingered 
on  in  the  East,  even  after  the  downfall  of  Babylon,  and  the 
persecution  of  the  astronomers  of  Chaldea.  The  Persian 
IMagi  had  in  their  turn  succumbed  to  the  Macedonian  sword, 
and  the  professors  of  both  these  religions  found  their  way 
to  the  freedom  of  the  Arabian  deserts.  The  Jews  had  al- 
ways regarded  Arabia  as  a  kindred  country.  A  remnant  of 
these  people  escaped  to  Arabia  when  the  Romans  captured 
Jerusalem.  These,  with  the  fertility  of  their  race,  soon 
struck  root  in  the  new  land,  mingled  in  its  commercial  deal- 
ings, built  synagogues  in  its  cities,  and  undertook  the  con- 
version of  the  Arabs  to  the  faith  of  Abraham.  Christianity 
also  appeared  in  this  motley  assembly  of  religions.  It  came 
in  from  Byzantine  Greece,  from  Alexandria  and  from  the 
Christian  kingdom  of  Abyssinia.     The  latter  kingdom  had 


136  The  History  of  Chrtstianity 

attempted  to  establish  Christianity  in  Arabia  by  force  of 
arms.  It  had  succeeded  only  to  a  very  limited  extent  and 
had  bred  dislike  and  hatred  among  the  fiery  and  patriotic 
inhabitants  who  looked  upon  all  foreign  faiths  with  sus- 
picion. But  Christianity  AA^as  very  far  from  presenting  a 
formidable  and  imposing  front.  The  internecine  dissensions 
which  had  raged  for  so  many  years  throughout  Christendom 
had  forced  out  many  of  the  warring  parties  beyond  the 
boundaries  of  the  Roman  Empire,  where  they  continued  their 
strife  in  a  free  field.  "  The  Marcionites  and  Manicheans," 
says  Gibbon,  "  dispersed  their  fantastic  opinions  and  apoc- 
ryphal gospels ;  the  churches  of  Yemen,  and  the  princes  of 
Hira  and  Gossan  were  instructed  in  a  purer  creed,  by  the 
Jacobite  and  Nestorian  bishops."  It  was  indeed  one  of  the 
darkest  periods  in  the  history  of  Christianity.  Speculation 
and  practice  were  alike  corrupt,  and  the  mingled  evils  of 
worldly  ambition,  false  philosophy,  sectarian  violence  and 
riotous  living  were  well  nigh  victorious  over  the  blood  of 
martyrs  and  the  wisdom  and  piety  of  great  men.  Here  is 
a  description  of  the  Christian  Church  at  the  time  when  she 
should  have  arisen  and  done  battle  Avith  the  rival  faith  which 
was  to  shake  the  world.  Dr.  White,  in  Bampton  Lectures 
for  1734,  says :  "  If,  in  surveying  the  history  of  the  sixth 
and  seventh  centuries,  we  call  to  our  remembrance  that  pur- 
ity of  doctrine,  that  simplicity  of  manners,  that  spirit  of 
meekness  and  universal  benevolence,  which  marked  the  char- 
acter of  the  Christian  in  the  apostolic  age,  the  dreadful  re- 
verse which  we  here  behold  can  not  but  strike  us  with  aston- 
ishment and  horror.  Divided  into  numberless  parties  on 
account  of  distinctions  the  most  trifling  and  absurd ;  con- 
tending with  each  other  from  perverseness,  and  persecuting 
each  other  with  rancor;  corrupt  in  opinion  and  degenerate 
in  practice,  the  Christians  of  this  unhappy  period  seem  to 
have  retained  little  more  than  the  name  and  external  pro- 
fession of  their  religion.  Of  a  Christian  church,  scarce  any 
vestige  remained.  The  most  profligate  principles  and  absurd 
opinions  were  universally  predominant ;  ignorance  amidst  the 
most  favorable  opportunities  of  knowledge,  vice  amidst  the 
noblest  encouragements  to  virtue ;  a  pretended  zeal  for  truth, 


Appearance  of  Mohammedanism  137 

mixed  with  tlie  wildest  extravagance  of  errors ;  an  implaca- 
ble spirit  of  discord  about  opinions  which  none  could  settle ; 
and  a  general  and  striking  similarity  in  the  commission  of 
crimes,  which  it  was  the  duty  and  interest  of  all  to  avoid." 

At  such  a  time  as  this  when  it  would  seem  that  the  great 
religions  of  the  world  were  failing  to  meet  the  demands  made 
upon  them  for  a  spiritual  uplifting  power,  Mohammed  un- 
dertook the  elevation  of  his  people  by  the  propagation  of  a 
new  religion.  He  brought  to  the  task  a  wonderfull}'^  perspi- 
cacious and  subtle  genius.  He  was,  no  doubt,  actuated  by  a 
sincere  conviction  of  the  necessity  for  a  great  religious 
reformation  among  a  people  of  a  degraded  life  and  contradic- 
tory creeds.  The  old  idolatry,  disturbed  and  partly  enlight- 
ened by  the  admixture  of  other  forms  of  belief,  left  an  open 
door  for  the  new  religious  appeal  and  this  appeal  found  a 
most  appropriate  soil  upon  which  to  plant  the  seed  of  a  new 
faith. 

The  religion  which  JNIohammed  introduced  was  successful 
from  the  first.  It  eliminated  the  old  source  of  weakness, 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  it  assimilated  to  itself  those  princi- 
ples in  the  rival  religions  which  it  found  to  be  most  vigorous, 
and  carefully  suited  its  teaching  and  requirements  to  the 
predominant  instincts  of  the  people  to  w^hom  it  was  pro- 
claimed. It  swept  away  the  old  brutish  idolatry ;  it  seized 
upon  the  salient  features  of  Judaism  and  Christianity,  and 
left  out  what  was  repugnant  to  the  natural  tendencies  of  hu- 
manity. It  cut  short  all  difficulties  either  of  speculation  or 
practice  by  the  bold  declaration, — "  there  is  but  one  God 
and  Mohammed  is  his  prophet.''  This  truth  is  asserted  in  a 
way  well  adapted  to  satisfy  the  aspirations  of  the  natural 
intellect. 

Thus  Mohammedanism,  to  quote  the  words  of  Milman, 
"  appeared  before  the  world  as  a  stem  and  austere  mono- 
theism, but  it  was  a  practical  not  a  speculative  monotheism. 
It  had  nothing  abstract,  indistinct,  intellectual  in  its  pri- 
mary notion  of  the  Godhead.  Allah  was  no  philosophic  first 
cause  regulating  the  universe  by  established  laws  while  itself 
stood  aloof  in  remote  and  unapproachable  majesty.  It  was 
an  ever-present,  ever-working  energy,  still  accomplishing  its 


138  The  History  of  Christianity 

own  purposes."  In  the  mind  of  Mohammed  "  nothing  ex- 
isted but  the  Creator  and  the  Creation."  "  The  Creator  is 
undistinguished,  undivided  Unity,  the  Creation,  which  com- 
prehended every  being  intermediate  between  God  and  man." 
Mohammed  was  born  in  the  year  570,  thus  associated  in 
point  of  time  with  Gregory  the  Great  who  was  born  but  a 
few  years  earlier.  His  father  was  of  a  family  distinguished 
in  the  wars  of  his  country,  and  had  himself  defended  ]Mecca 
against  the  Abyssinians  who  Avere  endeavoring  to  establish 
Christianity  by  conquest.  But  the  future  prophet  lost  both 
his  parents  in  infancy  and  he  was  cared  for  by  his  grand- 
father and  afterwards  by  his  uncle,  Abou-Taleb,  who  pro- 
tected him  as  one  of  his  own  children  throughout  his  youth, 
but  was  unable  to  do  much  for  him.  His  education  was  like 
that  of  other  Arab  boys  of  fine  parentage.  He  knew  a 
horse  as  if  he  was  its  brother,  and  he  was  master  of  all  the 
details  of  camp  life,  expert  with  the  spear  and  the  sword, 
and  a  lover  of  the  deserts  and  steppes  of  his  native  land. 
He  had  a  poetic  temperament  and  was  from  childhood  a 
mystic  dreamer.  Of  philosophy  and  letters  he  knew  nothing 
any  more  than  did  Joseph  Smith,  the  founder  of  Mormonism. 
When  but  a  youth  of  fifteen  he  became  a  camel-driver,  an 
occupation  which  was  looked  upon  with  respect  by  his  people 
but  gave  no  promise  of  future  wealth  or  distinction,  but  gave 
him  an  acquaintance  Avith  persons  and  places  which  exer- 
cised no  small  influence  upon  his  intellect  and  future  fortunes. 
While  still  a  mere  youth,  by  his  faithfulness  and  skill  in  con- 
ducting the  business  enterprises  of  others,  he  commended 
himself  to  the  attention  of  Khadijah,  a  wealthy  widow  of 
his  kindred,  Avho  hired  him  to  conduct  her  commercial  affairs. 
With  this  charge  he  travelled  to  Syria  and  Avas  so  successful 
in  the  conduct  of  her  business,  in  comparison  with  the  work 
of  her  previous  agents,  that  upon  his  return,  the  grateful 
widow,  moved  by  his  success  in  handling  her  business,  as  Avell 
as  attracted  to  the  young  man  by  his  manly  beauty  and 
pleasing  personality,  bestowed  herself  and  all  her  wealth 
upon  him  in  marriage.  He  no  longer  had  to  conduct  in 
person  the  caravans  of  camels  through  the  desert  sands  and 
protect  them  from  robbers.      He  left  this  toil  and  danger  to 


Life  of  Mohammed  139 

others  and  henceforth  spent  a  large  portion  of  his  time  in 
meditation.      Intensely  religious  by  nature  and  temperament 
a  mystic,  he  sought  the  silence  and  solitude  of  the  desert  and 
spent    whole    nights    plunged    in    the    profoundest    reveries. 
The  student  is  here  reminded  of  the  like  experience  of  Saul 
of  Tarsus  :  he  too  was  a  Semitic  dreamer.     Thus  uneventfully 
he  spent  twelve  years  in  contemplation  and  study,  not  of 
books,  but  of  God.     For  the  most  part  in  the  shadowy  silence 
of  a  cave  cut  out  from  the  rocks  near  his  house,  he  wrought 
out  his  plan  for  the  redemption  of  his  people.      To  his  faith- 
ful wife  he  declared  his  mission  and  designs.     "  I,"  said  Kha- 
dijah,  "  xcill  he  your  first  believer."     And  this  is  the  best  of 
all   evidence    of   the   sincerit}'^    and   honesty   of   Mohammed. 
Said  his  freedman,  AH,  his  cousin,  and  Abou-Bekr,  his  most 
intimate  friend,  were  the  next  converts,  thus  making  a  house- 
hold of  believers.      To  them  he  disclosed  the  revelations  made 
to   him   by   the   angel   Gabriel   which  he  embodied   in   "  the 
Book  "    (Al-Koran)    and   stated  the   doctrines   it   contained 
as    "  Islam,"    a   word   signifying   complete   abandonment   to 
God.     While  Mohammed  quickly  won  his  family,  the  next 
step,  to  win  his  tribe,  was  not  so  easily  taken.     The  vested 
interests  of  the  Koreishite  priesthood  were  against  him  and 
their  enmity  was  something  akin  to  that  of  the  silver-smiths 
of  Ephesus  against  Saul.      He  became  for  a  time  the  object 
of  hatred  and  a  plot  was  formed  against  his  life.     Abou- 
Taleb  warned  him  of  the  fact.     But  the  Prophet  was  inspired 
with  the  true  spirit  of  religious  enthusiasm,  if  with  nothing 
else.     "  Uncle,"  replied  INIohammed,  "  if  they  could  set  the 
sun  against  me  on  my  right  hand,  and  the  moon  on  my  left, 
I  would  not  abandon   the  affair."     So  Luther  said  at  the 
gates  of  Worms :     "  If  all  the  tiles  on  the  house-tops  were 
devils,  I  would  not  go  back."     But  not  only  hatred  but  per- 
secution became  violent  against  him.     Khadijah,  his  faith- 
ful wife,  was  dead;  also  Abou-Taleb.     He  was  finally  com- 
pelled to  flee  before  the  face  of  his  enemies  and  take  refuge 
in  Yathreb,  a  city  which  had  long  been  a  rival  of  INIecca. 
This  flight  has  become  the  famous  Hegira,  from  which  the 
Mohammedans  date  the  commencement  of  their  era,  the  16th 
of  July,  A.  D.  622.     He  was  received  in  Yathreb  with  open 


140  The  History  of  Christianity 

ai-ms.  This  city  is  now  known  as  Medina-tal-Nadi,  or  "  City 
of  the  Prophet." 

Mohammed's  first  care  now  became  the  destruction  of  the 
Koreishites.  With  but  313  men  he  fell  upon  a  thousand  of 
them  at  Bedar  and  scattered  them  in  utter  defeat.  But  the 
war  continued  with  unmitigated  fury  and  for  a  time  with 
doubtful  outcome.  The  Jews  joined  their  forces  to  those 
of  Mecca  and  together  they  administered  a  severe  defeat 
upon  the  forces  of  Mohammed  at  Ohad  and  even  besieged 
him  in  Medina.  But  he  cut  a  deep  trench  about  the  city  and 
by  means  of  this  succeeded  in  dispersing  the  enemy  and  mak- 
ing a  truce  for  a  period  of  ten  years  with  Mecca.  During 
this  period  he  made  many  converts  even  ^vithin  the  walls  of 
Mecca.  Before  the  expiration  of  the  ten-year  truce,  the 
people  of  Mecca  violated  it,  and  Mohammed  immediately 
marched  against  the  city  with  an  army  of  ten  thousand  men. 
He  made  his  way  into  the  city  almost  without  opposition. 
Seven  times  he  rode  his  camel  about  the  Caaba  even  as  the 
Israelites  went  round  the  walls  of  Jericho,  then  entering  this 
sacred  temple  he  proclaimed  with  a  loud  voice,  "  Allah  ak- 
bar  "  (God  is  great)  and  gave  orders  for  the  destruction  of 
the  three  hundred  and  sixty  idols  which  adorned  its  walls. 

The  ambition  of  his  life  was  now  fulfilled.  He  was  the 
chief  of  a  powerful  nation  and  recognized  as  the  Prophet  of 
God.  He  stands  supreme  and  alone.  He  has  won  the  hearts 
of  his  people.  He  has  made  of  Arabia  a  nation  instead  of 
a  hundred  warring  tribes  and  petty  kingdoms.  "  The  old 
idolatry  has  sunk  out  of  sight  before  the  fear  of  his  arms 
and  the  sublimity  of  his  new  creed."  His  successes  were  lim- 
ited to  the  submission  of  all  the  Arab  tribes,  who  volun- 
tarily professed  the  new  faith,  or  were  exterminated  by  Kha- 
lid,  the  Sword  of  God.  It  seemed  at  one  time  that  he  would 
be  compelled  to  pass  the  boundaries  of  Arabia  and  measure 
swords  with  the  emperor,  Heraclius.  The  Syrian  Greeks 
had  been  conquered  from  Chosroes  by  Heraclius  and  added 
to  the  Byzantine  empire.  Some  cause  of  quarrel  had  arisen 
which  caused  Mohammed  to  appear  upon  the  scene  with  an 
army  of  10,000  horsemen,  20,000  foot-soldiers,  and  12,000 
camels.     The  Prophet  himself  was  at  the  head  of  this  force 


Prayer  14j1 

mounted  on  a  camel  and  clad  in  robes  of  green.  Upon  his 
appearance  Heraclius  fell  back  with  his  whole  army.  There- 
upon Mohammed  returned  to  his  own  country,  and,  feeling 
the  near  approach  of  death,  made  a  magnificent  pilgrimage 
to  Mecca  at  the  head  of  115,000  followers.  He  had  scarcely 
returned  to  Medina  when  he  died,  on  the  eighth  day  of  June, 
632  A.D.,  the  eleventh  year  of  the  Hegira,  and  the  sixty-first 
of  his  age. 

The  teachings  of  Mohammed  may  be  gathered  from  the 
Koran,  the  Bible  of  Islam.  This  book  consists  of  the  say- 
ings and  prophecies  of  Mohammed  during  his  life  and  re- 
corded by  him  upon  bones  and  scraps  of  parchment  in  a  hap- 
hazard sort  of  way  but  gathered  with  the  greatest  care  and 
arranged  by  Othman,  a  son-in-law  of  Mohammed,  and  sub- 
sequently Khalif.  In  the  rites  and  ceremonies  of  Islam  there 
was  nothing  which  required  any  violent  breaking  away  from 
previous  habits  or  religious  observances.  The  Koran  em- 
phasizes four  great  precepts:  (1)  Prayer,  (2)  Almsgiving, 
(3)  Fasting  and  (4)  Pilgrimages.  These  are  not  new  as  all 
the  religions  of  the  world  have  made  use  of  them. 

Prayer  is  the  universal  language  of  all  people  and  reli- 
gions, but  the  direct  and  immediate  agency  of  God  in  all 
human  aifairs  and  "  His  perpetual  presence  with  man,  in- 
sisted upon  and  enforced  by  the  whole  Mohammedan  creed,  as 
well  as  the  concentration  of  all  earthly  worship  on  one  single 
invisible  God,  has  maintained  a  staid  and  earnest  spirit  of 
adoration  throughout  the  Mohammedan  world."  The  Old 
Testament  bound  the  Jews  to  relieve  the  poor  of  his  brethren 
with  a  generosity  which  has  never  been  surpassed  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  world.  The  Greeks  and  the  Romans  were  bound 
by  ties  of  hospitality,  and  the  barbarian  Germans  were 
specially  praised  by  Caesar  for  their  open-handed  generos- 
ity to  strangers.  The  Christian  of  the  first  and  second  cen- 
turies was  prodigal  of  alms.  The  Arabs,  before  the  time  of 
Mohammed,  had  declared  almsgiving  to  be  the  highest  of 
religious  virtues.  The  Koran  puts  its  seal  to  this  national 
trait  and  commands  almsgiving  as  one  of  the  great  precepts 
of  the  faith.  Fasting  has  alwaA'S  been  a  religious  rite.  It 
was  prominent  in  Jewish  religion.     It  was  usual  in  the  Greek 


142  The  History  of  Christianity 

cults.  The  Ramadan  is  little  more  than  the  Christian  Lent 
under  another  name.  Pilgrimages,  too,  are  old  as  a  reli- 
gious rite.  Jews,  in  the  time  of  Christ,  were  required  to 
make  a  visit  to  the  temple  at  least  once  a  year.  Christians 
had  long  since  turned  the  grave  of  the  Redeemer  into  a  holy 
place  to  wliich  pilgrims  journeyed  in  constant  streams!  So 
the  Koran  turned  the  hearts  of  all  true  believers  toward  the 
Holy  Cities,  to  Medina  and  Mecca,  to  which  every  faithful 
follower  of  the  Prophet  was  expected  to  make  a  journey  at 
least  once  in  his  lifetime. 

In  addition  to  the  four  principles  given  above,  there  arc- 
six  articles  embraced  in  the  creed  of  the  Koran.     These  are : 

( 1 )  Confession   of   the   unity   of   God ;    thus    Mohammed 

rationalized  the  conception  of  the  deity. 

(2)  It   acknowledged   an   intermediate   world  peopled  by 

genii,  an  incorporeal  race  midway  between  angels 
and  men. 

(3)  Angelic  appearances. 

(4)  Prophets  of  God  (Jesus  being  one  of  them). 

(5)  The  Resurrection  and  Day  of  Judgment. 

(6)  God's  predetermination  of  good  and  evil;  this  abso- 

lute with  no  exceptions. 

The  grandeur  and  simplicity  of  the  concept  of  God  formed 
by  Mohammed  is  best  seen  in  a  speech  he  made  to  his  fol- 
lowers :  "  There  is  a  God  living,  and  personal,  no  empty 
formula  to  play  with,  but  a  real  father  and  Lord,  who  sits 
in  the  highest  heavens,  yet  actually  governs  the  kingdoms  of 
the  earth,  not  far  from  every  one  of  us,  ruling  the  nations 
with  a  mighty  hand  and  an  outstretched  arm.  He  is  your 
God,  and  you  are  His  people,  the  champions  of  His  cause, 
the  chosen  ministers  of  His  will;  go  forth  in  His  name  to 
victor}'." 

The  death  of  Mohammed  for  a  time  imperilled  the  suc- 
cess of  his  undertaking  as  he  had  left  no  special  directions 
either  as  to  the  form  of  government  to  be  established  after 
his  death  or  the  order  of  succession.  A  period  of  anarchy 
seemed  to  threaten.  Both  from  relationship  as  from  char- 
acter and  reputation,  Ali,  the  cousin  and  son-in-law  of  the 
Prophet  (husband  of  his  daughter  Fatima),  was  the  fittest 


Speech  of  Ahovr-Bekr  143 

of  all  the  claimants  for  the  glorious  but  difficult  position  of 
leader  of  the  tribes  of  Islam.  But  through  the  influence  of 
Ayesha,  the  favorite  wife  of  Mohammed,  her  father,  Abou- 
Bekr,  was  chosen,  after  a  hot  dispute  between  the  citizens 
of  Medina  and  Mecca.  The  new  Khalif  had  all  he  could  do 
for  a  time  to  maintain  his  position.  But  he  was  a  man  of 
wisdom  and  ability  and  soon  proved  himself  a  great  military 
leader.  He  put  down  a  formidable  rebellion  led  by  the  false 
prophet  Moseilama,  and  so  soon  as  he  felt  himself  secure 
upon  the  throne,  he  sent  a  summons  to  all  the  Arab  tribes 
which  ran  as  follows :  "  This  is  to  acquaint  you,  that  I  in- 
tend to  send  the  true  believers  into  Syria,  to  take  it  out  of 
the  hands  of  the  infidels.  And  I  would  have  you  to  know 
that  fighting  for  this  is  an  act  of  obedience  to  God." 

This  was  a  cause  that  mightily  appealed  to  the  war-loving 
spirit  of  the  Arabs  and  they  responded  with  zeal.  When 
his  forces  were  assembled  he  gave  them  special  directions 
as  to  their  conduct.  He  said:  "  When  you  meet  with  your 
enemies,  acquit  yourselves  like  men,  and  do  not  turn  your 
backs ;  and  if  you  get  the  victory,  kill  no  little  children,  nor 
old  people,  nor  women ;  destroy  no  palm-trees,  nor  burn  any 
fields  of  corn ;  cut  down  no  fruit-trees,  nor  do  any  mischief 
to  cattle,  only  such  as  j^ou  kill  to  eat.  When  you  make  any 
covenant  or  article,  stand  to  it,  and  be  as  good  as  your 
word.  As  you  go  on,  you  will  find  some  religious  persons 
that  live  retired  in  monasteries,  proposing  to  themselves  to 
serve  God  that  way ;  let  them  alone,  and  neither  kill  them 
nor  destroy  their  monasteries.  But  3^ou  will  also  find  an- 
other sort  of  people  who  belong  to  the  synagogue  of  Satan, 
and  have  shaven  crowns ;  be  sure  to  cleave  their  skulls,  and 
give  them  no  quarter,  till  they  either  turn  Mohammedans  or 
pay  tribute."  This  speech  sets  forth  with  great  clearness 
the  spirit  and  aims  of  the  Saracen  invasion.  Like  Gaesaric 
they  are  directed  "  against  those  whom  God  condemned." 

The  first  exploit  of  the  armies  which  were  thus  sent  out  to 
battle  for  the  mastery  of  the  world  was  the  capture  of 
Bostra,  the  key  of  the  Syrian  province.  Heraclius,  the  em- 
peror of  the  East,  was  an  able  prince  and  a  born  soldier. 
He  had  contended  with  some  success  against  Persia  and  had 


144  The  History  of  Christianity 

succeeded  in  re-conquering  the  provinces  of  Syria  and  Pales- 
tine which  had  been  snatched  from  the  empire  in  the  previous 
reign.  Herachus  sent  an  army  of  70,000  men  to  aid  Damas- 
cus which  was  invested  by  the  Arab  forces  which  had  cap- 
tured Bostra.  But  the  troops  of  Heraclius  were  swept  aside 
and  destroyed  by  the  fierce  followers  of  Abou-Bekr.  Before 
the  lapse  of  three  days,  Khalid,  the  Sword  of  God  and 
"  Thunderbolt  of  War,"  had  taken  the  city  of  Damascus 
and  pushed  on  to  the  conquest  of  the  East.  The  seven-day 
battle  of  Yermack  opened  the  way  to  Palestine  and  prac- 
tically accomplished  the  conquest  of  that  country.  Upon 
the  day  of  the  fall  of  Damascus  Abou-Bekr  died  in  the  very 
midst  of  his  victorious  career,  August  23rd,  634  a.  d.  His 
character  may  be  judged  by  the  fact  that  the  whole  inven- 
tory of  his  property  amounted  to  five  drachmas  ($1.22), 
which  he  ordered  to  be  distributed  among  the  people. 
"  This,"  as  Oman  truly  said,  "  was  a  hard  pattern  for  his 
successors." 

Omar,  a  second  son-in-law  of  Mohammed,  was  chosen  as 
successor  to  Abou-Bekr,  and  entered  immediately  upon  a 
brilliant  reign.  To  him  belonged  the  glory  of  reducing 
Jerusalem.  The  city  capitulated  after  a  brief  resistance, 
upon  terms  which  became  a  pattern  which  was  followed  by 
Mohammedan  princes  for  many  years.  These  terms  were 
protection  to  the  persons  of  the  inhabitants,  and  permission 
to  retain  the  use  of  their  churches.  They  were  also  allowed 
to  keep  possession  of  their  property  by  paying  tribute. 
Christianity  was  to  withdraw  from  public  gaze  and  conceal 
itself  in  its  own  sanctuary.  No  processions  were  henceforth 
allowed.  All  symbols  of  the  Christian  faith  were  to  be  re- 
moved ;  the  cross  upon  the  churches  was  to  be  taken  down ; 
bells  were  to  be  silent,  and  torches  were  to  glitter  no  longer 
upon  the  streets.  The  use  of  Arabic  (the  holy  language) 
was  prohibited  to  all  Christians,  and  the  Koran  was  not  to 
be  taught  to  their  children.  Monasteries  were  left  undis- 
turbed but  Mohammedans  were  to  receive  the  same  hospital- 
ity within  their  buildings  which  was  offered  to  Christians. 
The  monks  were  to  receive  the  wayfaring  Mussulman  for 
three  nights  and  give  him  food.     The  Christian  population 


Progress  of  Mohammedan  Arms  145 

was  in  every  way  degraded  and  made  to  feel  their  inferiority 
to  their  conquerors.  They  were  distinguished  in  dress,  in 
the  manner  of  wearing  the  hair.  They  were  denied  the  use 
of  all  arms,  in  this  way  forever  condemned  to  the  arts  of 
peace. 

The  austere  and  ascetic  Khalif  made  his  appearance  upon 
a  camel.  Before  him,  on  his  saddle,  he  carried  a  bag  of 
dates  and  a  leathern  bottle  of  water.  Of  this  frugal  repast 
he  himself  partook,  and  offered  a  portion  to  the  bystanders. 
Omar  remained  for  ten  days  in  Jerusalem.  From  here  he 
marched  to  Aleppo  and  Antioch.  These  cities  offered  little 
or  no  resistance,  and  with  their  fall,  Syria  passed  away  from 
the  Greek  empire  and  was  permanently  lost  to  Christianity. 
So  fell  the  patriarchate  of  Antioch  and  also  that  of  Jeru- 
salem. 

Arab  conquest  swept  on  into  Persia  and  the  far  East  and 
overthrew  the  Parsee  religion  and  planted  Mohammedanism 
in  its  stead,  but  it  is  beyond  the  scope  of  this  work  to  trace 
Arabian  conquest  beyond  its  struggle  with  Christianity. 

While  the  tide  of  conquest  thus  receded  to  the  East,  an 
Arabian  army  under  the  command  of  Amru,  one  of  the 
ablest  of  the  Prophet's  generals,  turned  westward  and  laid 
siege  to  the  city  of  Alexandria.  The  Alexandrian  forces 
were  much  divided  by  reason  of  sectarian  quarrels  among  the 
Christians.  The  Monophysites,  though  numerous,  had  been 
ruthlessly  persecuted  by  the  orthodox  Christians  and,  as  a 
consequence,  were  exasperated  to  the  point  of  rebellion. 
They  gave  but  a  half-hearted  support  to  their  religious  ene- 
mies. After  a  siege  of  fourteen  months  the  city  capitulated 
to  the  forces  of  the  Khalif.  Alexandria  was  in  many  re- 
spects the  second  city  of  the  world.  So  far  as  libraries  and 
schools  of  philosophy  were  concerned,  it  was  undoubted!}'  the 
first.  It  had  a  population  of  200,000  and  its  wealth  was 
very  great.  The  empire  put  forth  two  attempts  to  retake 
the  city.  Their  forces  twice  got  possession  of  the  bay  and 
fortifications  but  were  repulsed  with  great  loss  by  the  tena- 
cious valor  of  the  forces  of  Amru.  During  the  tumultuous 
days  of  the  siege  and  capture  of  the  city,  immense  numbers 
of  volumes,  the  most  precious  relics  of  antiquit}',  were  con- 


146  The  History  of  Christianity 

sumed  as  fuel  or  made  away  with  for  other  purposes.  Amru 
was  blamed  for  this  seeming  wanton  destruction  of  the 
world's  literature,  but  this  is  not  substantiated  by  any  trust- 
worthy authority,  and  his  subsequent  wise  administration 
of  the  city's  government  and  the  regulation  of  the  local  im- 
posts and  taxation,  and  important  public  works  undertaken 
under  his  auspices,  prove  him  to  have  been  a  man  very  dif- 
ferent from  the  ignorant  barbarian  which  he  is  represented 
to  have  been  by  his  Greek  enemies.  The  conquest  of  Alex- 
andria carried  with  it  the  subjugation  of  the  greater  part 
of  the  Greek  seaboard  of  North  Africa.  This  was  followed 
in  648  by  the  fall  of  Tripoli,  thus  making  the  Saracens  the 
masters  of  all  of  Roman  Africa. 

In  another  chapter  (Chapter  XXI)  we  have  seen  how  Sa- 
racen armies,  under  their  leader,  Al-Tarik,  crossed  over  the 
Straits  of  Gibraltar,  in  711,  and  conquered  the  Spanish  Pen- 
insula, driving  the  remnant  of  the  Visigoths  into  the  moun- 
tains of  Asturias  and  adding  another  empire  to  that  of  the 
followers  of  the  Prophet.  Mohammedan  arms  had  now  cre- 
ated an  empire  greater  in  extent  than  that  of  Rome.  The 
Khalif  had  become  the  sovereign  of  Persia,  Syria,  Egypt, 
Arabia,  Africa  and  nearly  the  whole  of  Spain,  and  that,  too, 
in  less  than  one  hundred  years.  But  this  conquest  and  sub- 
jugation of  powerful  nations  in  such  rapid  succession  is  not 
so  wonderful  as  the  fact  that  the  religion  of  the  conqueror 
became  that  of  the  subject  people.  The  Koran  supplanted 
the  sacred  books  of  Zoroaster  in  Persia,  and  the  formation 
of  a  new  national  language,  the  modern  Persian  from  the 
admixture  of  the  old  native  tongue  with  the  Arabic,  shows 
that  the  two  races  had  become  completely'  incorporated  and 
the  religion  of  ruler  and  ruled  remained  Mohammedan.  So 
too  the  followers  of  Magianism  seem  to  have  become  com- 
pletely absorbed  into  the  faith  of  Islam  and  lost  sight  of  as 
a  separate  and  distinct  sect.  But  what  seems  even  more 
remarkable  is  that  Christianity  in  Northern  Africa  and 
Southern  Spain,  even  in  Alexandria,  the  home  of  Origen  and 
Athanasius,  and  in  Carthage  and  Hippo,  the  homes  of  Ter- 
tullian,  Cyprian,  and  St.  Augustine,  utterly  failed  and  died 
out  and  the  Arabic  language  became  not  only  the  language 


Spirit  of  the  Faith  of  Islam  147 

of  the  state  but  the  people.  That  the  Christian  population 
which  survived  the  sword  in  these  countries  became  Moham- 
medan in  belief  there  can  be  no  doubt;  the  causes  for  such 
apostasy  were  many  and  mixed,  but  need  not  be  discussed 
here. 


FOURTH  PERIOD 


FROM  GREGORY  THE  GREAT  TO  THE  ESTAB- 
LISHMENT OF  THE  PAPAL  AUTOCRACY 
590-1250 


BOOK  VI 


RELATION  OF  THE  CHURCH  TO  CIVIL 
AUTHORITY 


CHAPTER  XXVr 

CHARLEMAGNE    AND    HIS    INFLUENCE    UPON    CHRISTIAN 
CIVILIZATION 

IN  the  Roman  Empire  legal  rights  came  to  be  determined 
by  the  relation  of  citizens  to  the  central  administration, 
and  so  perfect  was  the  machinery  of  the  laws  and  so  graded 
were  the  rights  of  the  citizens,  that  the  Roman  Code  has  with 
scarcely  a  change  been  made  the  basis  of  the  Code  Napoleon, 
and  used  as  the  civil  law  of  every  nation  in  Europe.  The 
German,  on  the  other  hand,  had  no  gradation  of  legal 
rights.  Each  individual  freeman  claimed  everything  in  earth 
and  sea  and  air  and  recognized  no  rights  of  a  neighbor.  He 
had  no  property  and,  therefore,  he  had  no  need  of  laws  gov- 
erning property.  The  Carolingian  period  is  to  weld  these 
two  systems,  so  antithetical  and  strange,  into  a  distinct  and 
novel  type  of  organization. 

When  Pippin,  the  first  king  of  the  Carolingian  line,  was 
anointed,  his  son  Charles  was  ten  years  of  age.  He  was  thir- 
teen when  his  father,  at  the  instigation  of  Pope  Stephen  II, 
went  against  the  Lombards  and,  after  a  glorious  campaign, 
had  his  two  sons  made  Patricians  of  Rome.  This  is  all  we 
know  of  the  youth  of  Charles.  The  time  in  which  he  grew 
up  was  the  last  part  of  the  darkest  night  in  the  history  of 
literature.  Until  the  middle  of  the  seventh  century,  there 
were  still  to  be  found  occasional  evidences  of  erudition. 
There  was  still  an  attempt  made  to  write  history,  and  poets 
like  Sidonius,  Apollinaris,  and  Fortunatus  lived  among  the 
Franks.  But  even  these  dull  lights  die  away  in  the  course 
of  the  seventh  century.  The  Frankish  conquerors,  few  in 
number,  gradually  amalgamated  with  the  Romanized  natives 
of  Gaul;  but  although  the  language  of  the  former  became 
merged  in  that  of  the  latter,  their  illiterate  vigor  seemed  to 
have  had  more  influence  on  the  native  population  than  the 

151 


152  The  History  of  Christianity 

semi-civilization  of  the  natives  had  on  the  invading  race. 
Schools  became  more  and  more  scarce  and  were  finally  con- 
fined to  the  clergy ;  the  art  of  writing  almost  perished. 
When  Pippin  the  Short  died  in  the  full  vigor  of  manhood, 
he  undid  the  work  of  his  lifetime,  as  his  father,  Charles  Mar- 
tel,  had  done  before  him,  by  dividing  his  realm  according  to 
the  Salic  law,  between  his  two  sons,  Carloman  the  elder,  and 
Charles,  who  was  afterwards  known  in  history  as  Charle- 
magne. The  kingdom  remained  divided  only  three  years 
(768—771),  and  these  three  years  were  consumed  in  the  con- 
quest and  organization  of  Aquitania.  Carloman  seems  to 
have  furnished  no  help  in  this  struggle  and  so  fanned  minor 
disputes  between  himself  and  brother  into  an  open  quarrel 
which  lasted  till  the  death  of  Carloman  in  771,  which  event 
was  brought  about  by  a  fever.  The  children  of  Carloman 
were  despoiled  of  their  inheritance  by  the  Austrasian  nobil- 
ity who,  no  doubt  instigated  by  him,  made  use  of  their  power 
of  election  to  place  Charles  on  the  Austrasian  throne. 
Thus,  as  in  the  case  of  Charles  ]\Iartel,  a  special  providence 
discharsres  the  dutv  of  correcting  the  mistakes  of  men.  Bv 
the  death  of  Carloman  unity  is  again  estabhshed  and  gov- 
ernment concentrated  in  the  hands  of  Charles.  Macaulay 
says  that  at  the  birth  of  Byron  all  the  graces  save  one  were 
present.  All  were  present  at  the  birth  of  Charlemagne.  An 
Arvan  nobleman  was  he.  In  him  slumbered  the  strength  of 
Hercules,  the  sagacity  of  Odysseus,  the  enterprise  of  Alex- 
ander, the  eloquence  of  Demosthenes,  and  the  interpid  zeal  of 
Luther.  He  was  seven  feet  in  height,  with  locks  of  molten 
gold,  and  eyes  bright  and  blue  and  animated.  When  he  ap- 
peared on  the  stage  of  history  as  the  sole  ruler  of  the  kingdom 
of  his  father,  he  was  but  twenty-nine  years  old:  master  of 
four  languages  but  unable  to  write :  skilled  in  arms :  endowed 
with  the  military  glance,  and  a  fine  physique,  worthy  of  the 
strength  of  his  ancestral  namesake,  surnamed  "  the  Ham- 
mer," and  his  sire  who  slew  the  bull  and  the  lion ;  a  fine  horse- 
man; a  mighty  hunter:  the  champion  swimmer:  in  fine,  a 
fierv,  willful  and  imperious  man,  impatient  of  contradiction 
and  opposition ;  of  unruly  passions :  of  a  strong,  clear  intel- 
lect, allied  to  singular  astuteness  and  unscrupulous  violence 


Character  of  the  Young  King  163 

—  this  latter  trait  in  common  with  the  age.  His  character, 
like  the  globe,  alternates  in  light  and  shade.  Unlike  Henry 
VIII  of  England,  the  night  side  happily  belongs  to  the  earlier 
portion  of  his  long  reign. 

The  original  and  dominant  characteristics  of  the  hero  of 
this  reign,  that  which  won  for  him  and  keeps  for  him  after 
more  than  ten  centuries  the  name  of  "  Great,"  is  the  strik- 
ing variety  of  his  ambition,  his  faculties  and  his  deeds. 
Charlemagne  aspired  and  attained  to  every  kind  of  great- 
ness ;  military  greatness,  political  greatness,  and  intellectual 
greatness.  Eginhard  says  of  him,  "  In  all  his  undertakings 
and  enterprises,  there  was  nothing  he  shrank  from  because 
of  the  toil  and  nothing  he  feared  because  of  the  danger." 
He  might  err,  as  err  he  did ;  stoop  to  do  wrong,  as  undoubt- 
edly he  stooped;  be  the  slave  of  passion,  as  he  was  known  to 
have  been ;  but  he  had  that  within  him  which  ever  lifted 
him  to  a  higher  plane,  to  the  sunny  realm  of  virtue,  piety, 
and  justice.  He  was  a  successful  conqueror,  a  sagacious 
ruler,  a  clear  legislator,  a  good  counsellor,  an  eloquent 
speaker,  a  munificent  patron  of  literature,  a  far-sighted 
philanthropist,  and  a  most  princely  benefactor  of  the  church. 
And  he  united  and  displayed  all  these  merits  in  a  time  of 
general  and  monotonous  barbarism  when,  save  in  the  church, 
the  minds  of  men  were  dull  and  barren.  To  know  him  well 
and  appreciate  him  justly,  he  must  be  examined  under  these 
various  grand  aspects,  abroad  and  at  home,  in  his  wars  and 
in  his  government.  The  Carolingian  crown  may  be  said  to 
have  been  worn  on  the  tenure  of  continual  conquest.  It  was 
only  on  this  condition  that  the  family  of  Pippin  of  Heristal 
could  vindicate  the  deposition  of  the  Merwings  and  the 
supremacy  of  Austrasia,  and  each  member  of  this  house  in 
turn  gave  an  example  of  obedience  to  this  law.  It  is  Charle- 
magne, however,  whose  life  has  best  fulfilled  it.  He  spent 
forty-six  years  in  militarj^  campaigns,  without  there  inter- 
vening a  single  year  of  peace,  and  each  was  marked  b}'  some 
military  triumph.  In  a  campaign  of  six  months  he  reduced 
the  kingdom  of  Aquitania.  In  less  than  two  years  he  drove 
the  Lombard  king  into  a  monastic  exile,  placing  on  his  own 
brows  the  iron  crown  and  with  it  assuming  the  sovereignty 


154  Tlie  History  of  Christianity 

over  nearly  all  the  Italian  peninsula  (773-774).  In  thirty- 
three  successive  campaigns  (772-803)  he  invaded  the  Saxon 
confederacy  until  the  deluge  of  barbarism  with  which  they 
threatened  southern  Europe  was  effectually  and  forever  re- 
pressed. He  swept  over  the  whole  surface  of  Europe,  from 
the  Ebro  to  the  Oder,  from  Brittany  to  Hungary,  from  Den- 
mark to  Capua,  with  such  a  velocity  of  movement  and  such 
a  decision  of  purpose,  that  no  power,  civilized  or  barbarous, 
ever  provoked  his  resentment  without  sinking  beneath  his 
prompt  and  irresistible  blows.  It  was  owing  to  this  almost 
superhuman  activity  on  the  part  of  Charles,  more  than  to 
his  pre-eminent  proficiency  in  the  science  of  war,  that  he 
ranks  among  the  great  commanders  of  the  world.  He  re- 
minds one  of  Gustavus  Adolphus  or  Napoleon  in  his  swift- 
ness of  movement,  while  in  his  ability  to  compensate  for  the 
numerical  inferiority  of  his  own  forces  to  that  of  his  antag- 
onist, by  converging  his  men  upon  some  meditated  point  of 
attack  in  such  a  manner  as  to  unite  their  forces  at  the  same 
moment,  he  was  superior  to  either  of  these  and  was  equalled 
only  by  Hannibal.  In  this  way  only  did  he  succeed  in  over- 
throwing the  countless  hordes  of  his  assailants  while  he  ex- 
tended meantime  the  boundaries  of  the  kingdom  which  he 
received  from  his  father.  Pippin.  He  added  to  the  empire 
of  Pippin,  in  the  south,  the  whole  of  southern  France  except 
Provence,  together  with  Catalonia  and  part  of  Navarre ;  in 
the  north,  modern  Hanover,  Brandenburg  and  Prussia  to  the 
Baltic  and  the  Oder;  in  the  east  and  northeast,  Saxony, 
Silesia,  and  the  Austro-Hungarian  monarchy,  together  with 
nearly  all  Italy.  If  now  we  stop  to  examine  into  the  causes 
which  so  constantly  worked  out  the  success  of  the  conqueror 
and  added  so  enormously  to  his  dominions,  we  will  find  the 
following  chief  ones :  —  Every  campaign  was  a  national  act. 
At  Easter  in  every  year  he  held  a  great  council  of  war  at 
which  all  the  Austrasian,  and  many  of  the  Neustrian  bishops, 
counts,  viscounts,  barons,  and  leudes  attended.  Although 
the  enterprise,  mayhap,  was  planned  and  suggested  by  Char- 
lemagne, yet  it  was  adopted  with  the  consent  of  all  the 
bishops  and  nobles  and  was,  therefore,  carried  out  with  con- 
fidence and  enthusiasm.      In  all  his  wars,  Gaul  afforded  to 


Causes  of  Success  155 

Charles  an  invulnerable  basis  for  his  military  operations. 
From  Gaul  he  invaded  every  part  of  Europe,  leaving  behind 
him  both  an  exhaustless  magazine  of  men  and  arms  and,  in 
case  of  disaster,  a  sure  retreat.  He  had  made  great  im- 
provement in  the  mere  materials  of  war,  by  reason  of  his  con- 
tact with  Roman  and  Lombard  subjects.  His  Franks  were 
no  longer  a  bare-legged  and  bareheaded  horde,  armed  with 
the  old  barbaric  lance  and  short  sword,  or  defended  by  a 
round  wicker-work  shield.  They  now  bore  the  long  Roman 
buckler  and  visored  helmet  and  were  armed  with  the  pileum, 
and  with  a  long-pointed  two-handed  sword.  He  mounted  his 
cavalry  upon  large  powerful  horses  bred  in  the  lower-Rhine 
country.  With  unerring  geographical  knowledge  he  was 
able,  as  I  have  previously  said,  to  move  his  armies  in  separate 
corps  and  at  the  same  time  to  strike  the  enemy  with  com- 
bined force  in  a  vulnerable  point.  Charlemagne  made  war 
support  itself.  There  does  not  occur  anywhere  in  his  laws 
any  suggestion  of  military  pay  or  tax  for  military  purposes. 
War  was  at  once  the  duty,  the  passion,  and  the  emolument 
of  his  soldiers.  The  proprietor  of  land  equipped,  armed, 
and  mounted  his  own  followers ;  their  living  and  pay  they 
took  from  the  enemy.  He  borrowed  from  Rome  the  example 
of  making  each  new  conquest  the  basis  for  a  further  strength- 
ening of  his  military  forces.  He  compelled  the  Lombards 
to  march  against  the  Saxons  and  Bavarians.  In  every  na- 
tion which  he  subdued  he,  like  Caesar,  enlisted  recruits  for 
other  campaigns  and  they  received  a  just  part  of  the  glory 
attaching  to  further  conquests.  His  unfailing  maxim  was 
to  divide  and  conquer.  In  carrying  out  this  policy  he  took 
advantage  of  differences  in  religion,  language,  or  traditions ; 
in  public  or  domestic  customs,  or  anytliing,  in  fact,  which 
tended  to  promote  or  exasperate  internal  strife.  The  old 
Iberian,  Gothic,  and  Italian  populations  regarded  him  as 
the  antagonist  of  the  dominant  Saracen  in  the  one  peninsula, 
and  of  the  dominant  Lombard  in  the  other,  and  from  this 
substratum  of  society  in  each  he  received  substantial  aid. 
While  Charlemagne  was  a  memorable  example  of  self-reliance 
in  every  field  of  activity,  he  ever  showed  the  most  generous 
confidence  in  the  powers  of  his  subordinate  officers,  and  it 


156  The  History  of  Christianity 

was  through  this  union  of  powers  that  he  was  able  to  give 
the  impression  that  he  was  everywhere  present,  even  in  an 
age  when  lack  of  travelling  facilities  made  long  journeys 
tedious  and  difficult  in  the  extreme.  Finally  and  chiefly,  the 
establishment  of  his  vast  empire  was  due  to  the  character 
he  sustained  as  champion  of  the  church.  The  elements  of 
society  were  in  discord,  the  church  and  the  church  alone 
maintained  a  unity  of  opinion,  of  sentiment,  of  habits,  and  of 
authority.  It  was  to  Charles  the  main  pillar  of  State. 
All  these  causes  appear  clearly  revealed  in  the  events  of  the 
life  of  Charles,  and  they  explain  why  it  is  that,  as  Gibbon 
says,  "  of  all  the  heroes  to  whom  the  title  of  '  The  Great ' 
has  been  given,  Charlemagne  alone  has  retained  it  as  a 
permanent  addition  to  his  name."  It  is  this  marvellous 
series  of  events  which  pass  thus  rapidly  before  our  eyes  that 
caused  the  contemporaries  of  the  great  conqueror  and  their 
descendants,  even  to  remote  generations,  to  cherish  the  tra- 
ditions of  his  mighty  deeds  and  to  lavish  on  his  memory  every 
tribute  which  history  could  pay  or  the  imagination  of  the 
poet  weave. 

We  have  traced  the  building  of  the  mighty  empire  of 
Charles  and  looked  into  the  causes  which  lay  back  of  it. 
It  now  becomes  necessary  to  examine  into  the  government,  the 
administration,  and  the  laws  of  this  vast  empire  which  his 
matchless  energy  constructed.  Before  his  accession,  this 
vast  territory  had  been  little  else  than  a  hunting-ground  and 
a  battle-field  for  all  the  swarms  of  barbarians  who  tried  to 
settle  on  the  ruins  of  the  Roman  world  they  had  invaded  and 
broken  to  pieces.  We  have  already  seen  that,  by  the  wars 
that  had  resulted  for  him  in  permanent  and  well-secured  con- 
quests, he  had  put  an  end  to  disorder  coming  from  without. 
We  shall  now  see  by  what  means  he  set  about  suppressing 
disorder  from  within ;  by  what  means  he  put  his  own  rule 
in  the  place  of  the  anarchy  prevailing  throughout  the  Roman 
world  which  lay  in  ruins,  and  throughout  the  barbarian  world 
which  was  a  prey  to  blind  and  ill-regulated  force.  Let  me 
here  say  that  Charlemagne  was  pre-eminently  an  organizer 
and  not  an  originator,  as  Bryce  claims.  This  must  appear 
upon  an  examination  of  his  acts  of  government,  as  it  has 


Materials  for  Organization  157 

already  appeared  in  his  method  of  conquest,  where  he  fol- 
lowed in  the  footsteps  of  his  father.  Charles  Martel  was 
nominal  master  of  a  great  territory,  but  centralization  had 
only  gone  so  far  with  him  as  to  make  the  conquered  peoples 
tributary,  and  not  parts  of  one  great  whole.  Pippin  but 
followed  in  the  wake  of  his  father  and  left  even  Burgundy 
separate  but  dependent.  Charlemagne  buUt  to  this  struc- 
ture even  more  than  he  added  to  his  territories.  In  Italy  he 
attempted  to  put  himself  at  the  head  of  the  Roman  civiliza- 
tion which  he  found  breaking  to  pieces  and  which  he  labored 
to  restore.  In  the  Frankish  territories  and  in  their  depend- 
encies north  of  the  Alps,  he  welded  half-formed  institutions 
into  a  strong  government.  As  Charlemagne  really  played 
the  parts  of  both  king  and  pope,  it  will  be  necessary  for  us 
to  divide  his  administration  into  two  divisions;  (1)  civil  ad- 
ministration, (2)  ecclesiastial  administration. 

The  civil  administration  is  very  naturally  further  divided, 
by  reasons  of  the  method  he  adopted,  into  central  admin- 
istration and  local  administration.  The  central  administra- 
tion Avas,  aside  from  the  personal  action  of  Charlemagne  and 
his  counsellors,  mainly  carried  on  by  means  of  assemblies 
or  folk-moots  of  all  the  freemen,  in  accordance  with  a  com- 
mon Germanic  custom.  They  probably  had  some  crude 
method  of  representation  as  did  the  Saxons  in  their  hun- 
dred courts.  These  great  assemblies  met  twice  a  year,  in 
March  and  May,  or  even  oftener  if  specially  summoned. 
Their  chief  purpose  was  to  give  advice  concerning  the  fram- 
ing of  laws,  the  initiation  of  which  had  already  been  made  by 
the  emperor  himself.  Thus  the  definitive  resolution  depended 
upon  Charlemagne  alone,  while  the  assembly  merely  fur- 
nished information  and  advice.  He  who  carries  his  hero 
worship  so  far  as  to  claim  that  Charlemagne  was  the  estab- 
lisher  of  a  free  constitutional  government  certainly  goes  be- 
yond the  truth.  It  is  he  himself  who  occupies  the  whole 
field ;  it  is  he  who  proposes  and  approves  the  laws  or,  in  case 
of  their  initiative  being  taken  by  another  man,  rejects:  with 
him  rests  the  motive. 

A  careful  study  of  the  capitularies,  enacted  by  Charle- 
magne in  conjunction  with  the  assembly,  would  reward  us 


158  The  History  of  Christianity 

well  for  our  pains,  but  the  space  is  too  brief.  The  capitu- 
laries are  the  laws  or  legislative  measures  of  the  Frankish 
kings,  Merovingian  as  well  as  Carolingian.  The  laws  of  the 
Merovingian  kings,  as  might  be  supposed,  are  few  in  num- 
ber and  of  slight  importance,  and  among  those  of  the  Caro- 
lingian kings,  which  amount  to  152,  only  65  are  due  to  the 
reign  of  Charlemagne.  Among  the  1151  articles  contained 
in  these  65  capitularies,  may  be  counted:  87  of  moral,  293 
of  political,  130  of  penal,  110  of  civil,  85  of  religious,  305 
of  canonical,  73  of  domestic,  and  12  of  incidental  legislation. 

If  we  compare  the  articles  of  penal  legislation  of  Charle- 
magne with  those  of  Alfred  the  Great  some  years  later,  we 
will  find  that,  while  only  eleven  percent  of  the  former  had 
to  do  with  crime,  fifty-seven  percent  of  the  latter  was  con- 
sumed in  this  way.  This  must  be  due  to  the  influence  of  the 
church  upon  the  civilization  of  the  Franks.  Charlemagne 
gave  great  attention  to  economic  and  administrative  legisla- 
tion. His  economic  laws  would  seem  to  have  been  copied 
after  those  of  Valentinian  III. 

For  purposes  of  local  administration,  the  whole  territory 
was  divided  into  districts,  afterwards  called  provinces,  over 
which  the  power  of  the  emperor  was  exercised  by  two  classes 
of  agents,  appointed  or  nominated  by  Charlemagne  himself. 
One  of  these  classes  was  local  and  permanent,  the  other  dis- 
patched from  the  center  and  transitory.  To  the  first  class 
belonged  grafen,  or  counts,  markgrafen,  or  margraves,  and 
herzogen,  or  dukes.  A  graf  was  a  person  who  ruled  over  the 
smallest  territorial  division  of  the  empire.  If  this  division 
of  territory  chanced  to  be  upon  the  border  and  was  for  this 
reason  subject  to  inroads  of  barbarians,  it  was  called  a  mark. 
and  the  ruler  was  called  a  mark-graf,  or  border-count.  His 
office  was  both  civil  and  military.  The  mark  was  but  a  mili- 
tary station,  separated  from  the  territory  of  the  enemy  by 
means  of  a  wide  strip  of  waste  land,  denuded  alike  of  shelter 
and  food.  Within  the  center  of  the  mark  was  the  town  or 
settlement  where  lived  the  tribe  or  military  complement  with 
their  wives  and  families.  Immediately  outside  of  the  town 
lay  the  farm  lands  of  the  community  which  were  not  orig- 
inally held  in  private  right  but  by  the  whole  community  in 


Local  Administration  159 

common,  and  beyond  these  was  the  great  tun  or  hedge  fence 
for  protection.  As  I  said,  this  community  was  under  mili- 
tary organization.  Every  able-bodied  man  was  a  militia- 
man under  the  command  of  the  markgraf.  The  next  unit 
above  this,  both  of  territory  and  of  government,  was  the  prov- 
ince, a  name  borrowed  from  the  Latin  provincia,  and  ruled 
over  by  a  herzog  or  duke.  This  province  was  composed  of 
several  marks  and  its  herzog  ruled  in  behalf  of  the  king.  It 
was  his  duty  to  see  to  it  that  the  grafen  and  markgrafen 
furnished  their  proper  quota  of  troops  to  the  imperial  army, 
which  troops  would  be  marshalled  under  his  own  banner  as 
corps-commander ;  he  also,  together  with  the  scabini  or  sher- 
iffs, saw  to  the  rendering  of  justice,  the  maintenance  of 
order,  and  the  levying  and  receipt  of  taxes.  In  fact,  his 
duties  corresponded  largely  to  those  of  the  earl  in  old  Saxon 
times  who  presided  over  the  hundred  court. 

To  the  second,  or  transitory  class,  belonged  the  benefici- 
aries or  vassals  of  the  emperor,  who  held  of  him,  sometimes 
in  fee,  more  often  still  without  fixed  rules  or  stipulation, 
lands,  domains  throughout  the  extent  of  which  they  exer- 
cised somewhat  in  their  own  name  and  somewhat  in  the  name 
of  the  emperor  a  certain  jurisdiction  and  nearly  all  the 
rights  of  sovereignty.  There  was  nothing  very  fixed  or  clear 
in  the  position  of  these  beneficiaries  or  in  the  nature  of  their 
power;  they  were  at  one  and  the  same  time  delegated  and 
independent,  owners  and  enjoyers  of  usufruct,  the  former 
or  latter  character  prevailing  among  them  according  to 
circumstances.  They  were  closely  bound  to  Charlemagne, 
who  generally  charged  them  with  the  execution  of  his  orders 
in  the  lands  which  they  occupied. 

Above  all  these  agents  which  I  have  named,  both  local  and 
transitory,  magistrates  and  beneficiaries,  were  the  missi 
dominici,  usually  three  in  number,  two  lay  and  one  ecclesias- 
tic, were  bound  not  only  to  investigate  the  condition  of  the 
people  and  to  try  cases  brought  before  them,  but  to  make 
a  careful  report  to  the  emperor  concerning  all  things  seen 
and  noticed  by  them.  These  were,  indeed,  the  chief  instru- 
ments of  unification  and  acted  as  the  eyes  and  ears  of  the 
king  and  his  witan.     However,  they  did  not  act  as  a  court 


160  The  History  of  Christianity 

of  last  resort,  for  an  appeal  could  be  taken  from  them  to 
the  imperial  tribunal,  and  finally  to  Charlemagne  himself. 
The  imperial  tribunal  was  presided  over  by  a  palsgrave,  an 
officer  of  the  palace,  who  as  justiciar  presided  in  all  cases 
in  the  place  of  the  emperor. 

While  Charlemagne  regarded  himself  as  the  civil  ruler, 
his  notion  of  his  imperial  functions  extended  to  the  sphere 
of  religion  and  theology.  He  deemed  himself  a  David  rather 
than  a  Caesar  Augustus,  and  with  this  idea  he  constantly 
interfered  in  the  affairs  of  the  church.  "  His  all-compre- 
hending, all-pervading,  all-impelling  administration  was  as 
equally  and  constantly  felt  by  his  ecclesiastical  as  by  his 
civil  subjects."  The  m'lssi  dominici,  or  royal  commissioners, 
inspected  the  conduct,  reported  on  the  lives,  fixed  the  duties, 
settled  the  tenure  of  property  and  obligations,  determined 
and  apportioned  the  revenues  of  the  religious  as  well  as  the 
temporal  hierarchy.  Charlemagne  legislated  for  priests  as 
well  as  for  laics,  in  each  case  with  an  absolute  despotism. 
His  institutes  are  in  the  language  of  command  to  all  classes. 

Before  the  death  of  Pippin  he  had  succeeded  in  complet- 
ing the  ecclesiastical  organization  of  the  entire  Kingdom 
and  in  a  synod  held  at  Vermeuil  established  the  power  vested 
in  the  clergy  from  the  least  to  the  greatest.  As  Charle- 
magne increased  his  empire  by  adding  to  the  magnificent  do- 
main which  he  received  from  his  father,  so  in  the  matter  of 
religion  he  made  use  of  the  ecclesiastical  organization  al- 
ready formed  and  merely  extended  and  strengthened  it.  He 
divided  his  vast  empire  into  twenty-one  archbishoprics. 
Over  each  he  appointed  an  archbishop  (metropolitan), 
whose  residence  was  in  the  chief  city  of  his  territory.  In 
each  city  within  an  archbishopric  he  appointed  a  bishop, 
each  bishop  having  a  council  of  presbyters  beneath  him. 
The  bishops  of  the  several  sees  had  exclusive  control  of  all 
ecclesiastical  affairs.  Even  monasteries,  which  had  not  been 
heretofore  looked  upon  as  in  any  way  dependent,  now  were 
made  subservient  to  episcopal  jurisdiction,  while  the  whole 
hierarchy  was  brought  under  imperial  control,  the  emperor 
taking  to  himself  the  power  of  appointing  all  archbishops 
and  bishops  and  compelling  them  to  serve  him  for  their  lands. 


Ecclesiastical  Administration  161 

The  right  of  appeal  lay  from  the  bishop  to  the  emperor 
rather  than  to  the  pope.  In  this  way  no  matter  by  what 
gradation  of  steps  you  ascend,  civil  or  ecclesiastic,  it  is 
Charlemagne  who  is  discovered  at  the  summit  of  the  social 
pyramid.  There  were  no  servants  of  the  church,  from  the 
least  to  the  greatest,  who  were  not  supported  either  by  tithes 
which  were  collected  by  imperial  law,  or  gifts  to  the  church 
made  or  sanctioned  by  Charlemagne.  The  whole  clergy  thus 
looked  to  him  for  their  appointment  and  their  living  and  he, 
in  turn,  while  he  fed  them,  legislated  for  them  and  in  certain 
cases  interfered  with  the  doctrine  they  preached.  He  ad- 
monished them  frequently  to  pure  lives ;  forbade  bishops, 
abbots  and  priests  to  keep  hounds,  falcons,  hawks,  or  jug- 
glers ;  forbade  drunkenness,  lewdness  and  swearing  among 
the  same  class.  He  forced  the  clergy  to  diligent  study,  pro- 
vided for  preaching  in  the  vernacular,  and  insisted  that  the 
laity  know  the  pater-noster  and  the  creed  and  understand 
the  main  Christian  doctrines.  He  was  an  advanced  thinker 
for  his  age.  Listen  to  this :  "  Beware  of  venerating  the 
names  of  martyrs  falsely  so-called,  and  the  memory  of  dubi- 
ous saints.  Let  none  suppose  that  prayer  cannot  be  made 
to  God  save  in  three  tongues,  for  God  is  adored  in  all  tongues 
and  man  is  heard,  if  he  do  but  ask  for  the  things  that  are 
right." 

In  the  first  of  his  capitularies  Charlemagne  enacts  the 
general  rule :  "  We  ordain  that,  acceding  to  the  canons, 
every  bishop  shall  give  heed  within  his  own  charge,  that  the 
people  of  God  do  no  pagan  rites;  but  that  they  reject  and 
put  away  all  defilement  of  the  Gentiles,  profane  sacrifices 
for  the  dead,  or  fortune  tellers  or  diviners,  or  amulets,  and 
charms,  or  incantations,  or  immolating  of  victims,  which 
foolish  people  do  near  churches  with  pagan  rites  in  the  name 
of  holy  martyrs  or  confessions  of  the  Lord ;  who  invite  their 
saints  rather  to  wrath  than  to  mercy.  We  advise  that  each 
year  every  bishop  shall  carefully  visit  his  charge  in  circuit, 
and  endeavor  to  confirm,  instruct,  and  watch  the  people,  and 
forbid  pagan  rites,  diviners,  fortune-tellers,  auguries,  amu- 
lets, incantations  and  all  defilements  of  the  Gentiles." 

Thus  we  see  that  the  rule  of  Charles  included  ecclesiastical 


162  The  History  of  Christianity 

and  secular  affairs,  and  to  the  details  of  each  he  gave  his 
most  careful  attention.  The  canons  of  the  church  have  the 
same  weight  as  the  laws  of  the  state,  and  the  assemblies  of 
the  state  were  also  synods  of  the  church.  "  The  heresies  of 
Bishop  Felix  and  the  decisions  of  the  Council  of  Constanti- 
nople in  regard  to  image  worship  were  condemned  in  the 
assembly  that  issued  laws  against  political  offenses  and 
regulations  for  the  order  and  administration  of  the  State." 
It  will  be  remembered  that  since  476  there  had  been  no 
emperor  in  the  West,  while  the  Emperor  of  the  East  had  been 
unable  to  control  that  part  of  the  great  Roman  State  which 
had  been  builded  by  the  valor  and  statesmanship  of  a  long 
line  of  Caesars.  But  the  West  still  regarded  itself  as  a  part 
of  the  one  great  empire.  The  coronation  of  Charlemagne  in 
800  is  the  famous  transfer  of  the  empire,  which  has  brought 
about  so  much  discussion  and  divergence  of  opinion.  By 
the  church,  it  has  generally  been  held  that  the  pope  took  the 
imperial  crown  from  the  emperors  of  the  East  and  con- 
ferred it  upon  the  king  of  the  Franks.  From  the  point  of 
view  of  Frankish  history,  it  has  ever  been  considered  as  the 
culmination  of  the  connection  between  the  popes  and  the 
king  of  the  Franks,  begun  with  the  coronation  of  Pippin. 
In  the  spring  of  the  year  800,  after  having  spent  the  winter 
in  comparative  quiet  at  his  beloved  Aachen,  Charlemagne 
set  out  upon  his  fourth  journey  to  Rome.  He  was  accom- 
panied on  his  march  by  his  second  son.  Pippin,  who  had  quite 
recently  been  crowned  King  of  Italy.  Arriving  at  Ancona, 
he  sent  Pippin  with  the  army  upon  a  ravaging  expedition 
into  the  country  of  the  Beneventans,  while  he  himself  con- 
tinued his  journey  alone.  On  the  24th  of  November  he  ar- 
rived at  Rome.  On  the  preceding  day  he  had  been  met  by 
the  pope,  Leo  III,  at  the  little  town  of  Mentana,  fourteen 
miles  northeast  of  the  city.  His  Holiness  partook  of  sup- 
per in  the  camp  of  the  Franks  and  then  hastened  back  in 
order  that  all  things  might  be  ready  for  the  reception  of  his 
royal  guest.  Upon  the  morning  of  the  24th,  the  citizens 
of  Rome,  accompanied  by  ecclesiastics  and  guilds  of  foreign- 
ers, with  flying  banners  and  military  standards,  went  forth 
from   the  city  to  greet  their  great  patrician.     Eager  and 


Doings  in  Rome  163 

enthusiastic  multitudes  lined  the  avenue  of  approach  and 
with  joyful  voices  sang  the  customary  lauds.  The  royal 
procession  at  last  drew  near  to  the  venerable  basilica  of  St. 
Peter  where  the  pope,  with  the  officers  and  clergy  of  the  city, 
awaited  the  arrival  of  the  king  on  the  platform  at  the  head 
of  the  magnificent  marble  staircase.  Charles  here  dis- 
mounted and  walked  slowly  up  the  steps  of  the  basilica, 
where  Leo  received  him.  A  prayer  of  thanksgiving  was 
offered  and  amid  songs  of  praise  the  king  was  conducted  into 
the  church. 

After  a  week  of  rest  and  preparation  for  the  tasks  that 
awaited  him,  Charles,  arrayed  in  the  costume  of  a  Roman 
patrician  instead  of  the  simple  dress  of  a  Frankish  warrior, 
which  was  his  custom,  announced  to  the  Synod,  which  had 
been  summoned,  the  objects  which  had  brought  him  to  Rome. 
Of  these  the  most  important  was  the  investigation  of  the 
crimes  urged  against  Leo  by  his  many  enemies.  Charles 
entered  upon  this  task  with  his  accustomed  energy,  but  was 
met  on  the  threshold  by  a  difficulty  unlocked  for  and  insur- 
mountable. For  some  reason  unknown,  no  one  was  willing 
to  come  forward  and  formulate  the  charges  against  the  pope. 
The  chief  instigators  had  doubtless  been  summoned  to  ap- 
pear before  the  Synod  and  make  formal  charges,  but  noth- 
ing had  come  of  it.  The  king  doubtless  discovered  that 
there  was  no  valid  legal  foundation  for  their  charges,  but 
they  may  have  been  cowed  into  silence.  The  truth  will 
never  be  known.  When  the  trial  proved  abortive,  the  pope 
purged  himself  of  the  crimes  imputed  to  him  by  a  solemn 
oath  taken  in  the  presence  of  the  king,  assembled  ecclesias- 
tics, and  citizens.  Fully  three  weeks  now  passed  by  without 
any  act  being  recorded  by  the  authorities.  It  can  scarcely 
be  doubted,  however,  that  deliberations  between  Frankish 
nobles  and  Roman  ecclesiastics  took  place,  which  prepared 
the  way  for  the  dramatic  act  that  followed.  Surely  the 
Roman  populace  was  not  ignorant  of  the  pope's  purpose. 

When  the  Christmas  chimes  awakened  Rome  on  this  mem- 
orable day,  they  fell  upon  the  ears  of  a  vast  multitude  eager 
to  take  part  in  the  gladsome  festival  of  the  Nativity.  While 
it  was  yet  dark  and  the  central  nave  of  the  basilica  was 


164  The  History  of  Christianity 

lighted  by  the  soft  glow  of  more  than  thirteen  hundred 
waxen  candles,  through  the  wide  portals  of  the  church  filed 
the  bronzed  veterans  of  the  Frankish  host  and  the  body- 
guard of  the  king;  the  nobility  of  Rome,  and  the  flower  of 
the  people,  together  with  the  most  illustrious  counts,  gen- 
erals, the  court  of  the  monarch,  and  the  pontifical  officers. 
Near  the  shrine  of  St.  Peter,  close  to  Leo,  were  Charles, 
King  of  Austrasia;  Pippin,  King  of  Italy;  other  members 
of  the  royal  family,  and,  overtowering  all  the  rest,  Charle- 
magne himself  in  all  the  splendor  of  a  Roman  patrician. 
As  the  strains  of  mass  died  away,  he  knelt  in  prayer.  As 
he  arose  from  his  knees,  the  pope  approached  him  and,  lift- 
ing high  his  hands,  placed  on  the  head  of  the  giant  king  a 
golden  crown,  exclaiming,  "  To  Charles  Augustus,  crowned 
of  God,  mighty  and  pacific  Emperor,  be  life  and  victory." 
The  expectant  multitude  took  up  the  cry  and  repeated  it 
again  and  again.  Thereupon,  all  joined  in  a  long  series  of 
choral  invocations  to  Christ,  to  angels,  to  apostles,  to  mar- 
tyrs, and  to  virgins,  praying  each  separately  to  grant  the 
newly  crowned  Emperor  heavenly  aid  to  conquer  all  his 
foes.  In  this  way  was  the  great  revolution  accomplished 
which  had  been  preparing  for  more  than  three  generations. 
An  emperor  again  sat  upon  the  throne  of  the  Caesars,  the 
first  of  a  long  line  of  Germanic  August!  who  were  to  wear  the 
imperial  diadem  until  bidden  by  the  first  Napoleon,  in  1806, 
to  lay  it  aside  as  an  out-worn  symbol  of  a  grandeur  that  had 
passed  away. 

The  great  emperor  died  in  January,  814,  and  was  buried 
at  Aachen,  his  German  home,  where  he  had  loved  so  well  to 
live  and  whose  basilica  he  had  adorned  with  all  the  treasures 
of  art.  Here  we  find  his  tomb,  under  the  dome,  inscribed 
with  these  simple  words,  CAROLO  MAGNO. 

And  now  it  is  necessary  to  ask  ourselves  and  attempt,  at 
least,  to  answer  the  question,  "  How  much  of  all  this  lived.'*  " 
What  was  the  effect  which  this  truly  great  man  produced 
upon  civilization. f*  Do  the  heroes  of  the  world  pass  from  the 
stage  of  activity  and,  as  some  historians  have  said,  leave  no 
trace  behind.''  Charlemagne's  system  was  a  forcible  repres- 
sion  of   disintegrating   tendencies   which  were   all   the   time 


Results  165 

gathering  strength.  Up  to  his  time  the  frontiers  of  Ger- 
many, Spain,  and  Italy  were  in  continual  fluctuation ;  no 
constituted  public  force  had  attained  a  permanent  shape. 
The  history  of  the  civilization  of  France  under  the  Merwing 
kings  presents  a  constant  universal  decline.  In  religious 
society  as  well  as  in  civil  society,  everywhere  we  have  seen 
anarchy  and  weakness  extending  themselves  more  and  more ; 
we  have  seen  everything  become  enervated  and  dissolved, 
both  institutions  and  ideas ;  what  remained  of  the  Roman 
world,  and  what  the  German  had  introduced.  "  Up  to  the 
eighth  century  nothing  of  what  had  formally  been  could 
continue  to  exist ;  nothing  which  seemed  to  dawn  could  suc- 
ceed in  fixing  itself."  Charlemagne  changes  all  this.  He 
arrests  decay  and  reinstates  a  course  of  progress.  He 
marks  the  place  at  which  the  dissolution  of  the  Roman  world 
is  consummated  and  where  the  foundation  of  modern  Euro- 
pean states  begins.  Destruction  ceases  and  creation  and 
growth  renew  themselves. 

The  secret  of  his  failure  to  establish  a  permanent  govern- 
ment —  for  he  did  fail  —  is  in  the  fact  that  not  centraliza- 
tion but  localization  was  the  will  of  the  people.  At  the  time 
in  which  Charlemagne  lived  centralization  could  only  be  ob- 
tained in  the  hands  of  a  great  man.  Could  a  succession  of 
Charlemagnes  have  been  obtained,  then  the  great  object  of 
this  great  man  could  have  been  reached  and  the  civilization 
of  Europe  might  have  possibly  been  advanced  five  centuries. 
I  say  possibly,  because  I  am  not  sure  but  the  slow  process 
through  which  the  present  civilization  has  been  produced 
was  the  only  way.  The  tree  which  weathers  a  century  of 
storm  is  the  tree  which  has  required  a  century  of  growth. 
The  great  aim  and  glory  of  the  life  of  Charlemagne  had  been 
the  revival  of  the  empire  of  Rome  and  to  put  new  life  into 
the  dead  body  of  imperialism.  He  failed  in  this  attempt  and 
all  the  machinery  of  centralization  failed  with  him.  And  the 
reason  was  that  the  people  were  not  ready  for  it  yet.  Says 
Bryce,  "  The  nations  were  not  ripe  for  settled  life  or  ex- 
tensive schemes  of  polity;  the  differences  of  race,  language, 
manners ;  overvast  and  thinly  populated  lands  baffled  every 
attempt  to   maintain  their  connection;   and  when  once  the 


166  The  History  of  Christianity 

spell  of  the  great  mind  was  withdrawn,  the  mutually  repel- 
lent forces  began  to  work  and  the  mass  dissolved  into  that 
chaos  out  of  which  it  had  been  formed.  Nevertheless  the 
parts  separated  not  as  they  met,  but  having  all  of  them  un- 
dergone influences  which  continued  to  act  when  political  con- 
nections had  ceased."  This  is  true  in  a  measure.  Charle- 
magne's central  government  failed,  if  not  during,  yet  imme- 
diately upon  the  close  of  his  life;  but  the  local  government, 
the  grafen,  markgrafen,  herzogen,  with  the  beneficiaries  and 
vassals  who  held  authority  in  their  several  neighborhoods, 
still  lived.  Property  in  land,  which  had  been  either  unknown 
or  very  unstable  during  previous  reigns,  in  the  forty-six 
years  of  the  government  of  Charlemagne  became  established, 
and  this,  as  is  always  the  case,  brought  with  it  the  elements 
of  stability,  order,  and  progress.  About  the  graf,  the  her- 
zog,  and  the  bishop,  each  with  the  land  over  which  he  had 
been  made  master,  there  grew  up  a  host  of  dependent  vas- 
sals holding  lands  and  looking  to  these  persons  for  redress 
of  grievances.  From  these  centers  were  to  grow  up  within 
succeeding  generations  the  next  order  of  society,  the  only 
society  possible,  cut,  so  to  speak,  to  the  measure  of  existing 
ideas  and  relations ;  both  ecclesiastical  and  civil  institutions 
are  destined  to  receive  from  this  source  an  impulse  which  is 
to  be  the  condition  of  subsequent  progress,  and  again  and 
yet  again  is  the  civilization  of  our  day  to  be  affected  by  the 
handiwork  of  Carl. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

FEUDALISM    AND    THE    CHURCH 

IX  the  chapter  upon  Charlemagne  we  stated  that  he  unin- 
tentionalW  developed  feudalism  while  striving  to  rebuild 
the  Roman  method  of  government.  You  will  probably  recol- 
lect that  in  our  consideration  of  the  state  of  Roman  Gaul 
and  its  inhabitants,  both  ancient  and  modern,  after  the  bar- 
baric invasions,  we  at  least  attempted  to  establish  the  fact 
that  the  two  primitive  associations  of  the  Germanic  nations, 
the  tribes  and  the  warrior  bands  with  their  respective  meth- 
ods of  administration  and  military  patronage,  were  broken 
up  in  passing  to  the  Roman  soil,  for  their  institutions  no 
longer  suited  the  new  situation  in  which  they  as  conquerors 
found  themselves.  After  the  invasion  into  the  empire  an 
immense  amount  of  territory  was  thrown  open  to  the  eager 
avidity  of  the  conquerors.  They  dispersed  themselves 
throughout  it  in  every  direction.  The  chiefs  seized  upon 
vast  domains  upon  which  they  settled  their  followers,  while 
the  ordinary  freemen  at  first  mayhap  contented  themselves 
with  common  holdings.  They  were  too  far  apart  to  meet 
often  and  deliberate  in  common.  In  this  way  the  political 
sovereignty  of  the  old  general  assembly,  or  folk-moot,  be- 
came impracticable,  was  doomed  to  perish  and  give  way  to 
another  system.  We  have  also  seen  the  Roman  society,  its 
general  organization  at  least  as  to  the  force  that  presided 
over  it,  the  imperial  administration,  dissolve  after  the  inva- 
sions so  that  at  the  commencement  of  the  eighth  century, 
Roman  society  and  Germanic  society  had  alike  perished  in 
Frankish  Gaul,  now  abandoned  to  the  most  heterogeneous 
anarchy.  Again,  we  have  seen  how  Charlemagne  failed  in 
his  attempt  to  resuscitate  and  restore  the  empire  by  re- 
establishing on  the  one  hand  the  Roman  administration ;  on 

the  other,  national  Germanic  assemblies  and  military  patron- 

167 


168  The  History  of  Christianity 

age,  which  latter  was  patterned  upon  the  independent  mili- 
tary band  or  gefolge.  He  in  some  sort  renewed  all  the  modes 
of  association,  all  the  means  of  government  which  the  empire 
and  Germany  had  known,  and  which  lay  disorganized  and 
powerless  about  him.  He  reminds  one  of  an  architect  at- 
tempting to  build  a  palace  out  of  the  broken  and  disorgan- 
ized fragments  of  a  Roman  cathedral  and  the  mud  hut  of  a 
German.  Between  these  parts  there  is  no  cohesion.  He 
piles  them  together  without  much  regard  to  form  and  beauty. 
A  mosaic  from  the  wall  of  the  cathedral  is  in  juxtaposition 
with  pieces  of  wasp-board  clay.  Carl  succeeded  for  a  mo- 
ment, and  on  his  own  account,  but  this  was  merely,  as  Guizot 
says,  a  galvanic  resurrection.  As  applied  to  a  great  soci- 
ety, the  principles  of  the  imperial  administration,  those  of 
the  wandering  band,  and  those  of  the  free  tribes  of  Ger- 
many were  equally  impracticable.  The  spirit  of  Roman  im- 
perialism failed  to  make  any  allowance  to  the  rights  of  the 
individual  man ;  that  of  the  Germanic  assemblies  failed  to 
control  this  individual  in  his  assumption  of  absolute  freedom 
from  all  social  restraint;  and  being  at  best  but  a  cvunber- 
some  machine  but  poorly  adapted  to  the  conditions  of  the 
new  settled  life,  it  fell  to  pieces.  So,  when  the  iron  hand  of 
Carl  was  crumbled  in  the  grasp  of  death,  society  made  haste 
to  resolve  itself  into  its  component  atoms.  The  element  of 
cohesion  being  removed,  our  architect's  palace  fell  again  into 
fragments  of  cathedral  and  mud  hut.  Please  keep  in  mind, 
however,  that  these  atoms  of  two  contending  civilizations, 
these  fragments  of  the  artistic  and  the  common,  had  all  been 
polarized  and  when  they  were  left  free  to  seek  their  own 
affinities  they  gradually  arranged  themselves  in  a  new  and 
unique  feudal  pattern.  Iron  filings  having  once  come  in 
contact  with  a  magnet,  or  current  of  electricity,  are  left  for- 
ever changed.  The  causes  for  the  dissolution  which  took 
place  after  the  death  of  Carl  have  already  been  discussed  and 
it  will  not  be  necessary  for  us  to  tarry  here  for  a  reconsid- 
eration of  the  question.  That  which  now  demands  our  at- 
tention is  the  life  principle,  the  electric  current,  which  has 
polarized  these  atoms  of  statehood  and  caused  them  to  re- 
arrange  themselves   after  a   new  pattern.     It  may  well  be 


Transition  to  Feudalism  169 

named  property  in  land.  The  phenomenon  which  we  are  to 
study  simply  marks  a  general  process  of  land  feudalization 
characterizing  a  certain  grade  in  the  political  and  economic 
growth  of  all  the  Aryan  peoples.  The  universal  ]jrimitive 
form  of  all  land  ownership  was  the  collective.  The  invasions 
found  the  Germanic  village  communities  where  those  of  India 
are  today,  just  emerging  from  this.  Under  these  conditions 
no  great  society  could  be  maintained.  Mankind  had  few 
ideas,  in  those  days,  and  the  horizon  of  thought  and  of  life 
was  exceedingly  limited.  Without  thought  a  great  society 
is  impossible.  Such  was  the  condition  in  the  times  of  which 
we  now  speak.  When  by  conquest  the  Germanic  tribes  be- 
came possessed  of  a  vast  extent  of  territory  and  the  mem- 
bers of  these  tribes  saw  about  them  on  every  side  properties 
held  by  individuals  who  reaped  the  fruits  of  the  fields  with- 
out having,  as  was  the  case  with  themselves,  an  assembly  of 
wise  men  to  divide  them  proportionately  among  the  neigh- 
bors, we  can  readily  see  how  such  a  system  would  find  favor 
in  their  eyes.  And  the  cry  did  arise,  on  every  side,  "  Give 
us  too  of  these  lands  that  we  may  sow  and  reap  and  garner 
for  ourselves."  Such  a  cry  would  naturally  come  first  of 
all  from  the  warrior  chieftains  who  by  their  services  had  so 
commended  themselves  to  their  king  or  leader  that  they  could 
ask  a  favor  from  him.  In  response  to  this  the  king  granted 
large  tracts  of  land  to  such  chieftains  as  benefices  or  gifts, 
and  these  chieftains,  in  turn,  granted  portions  to  their  im- 
mediate followers,  or  gefolge,  upon  the  same  terms.  As  we 
have  already  taken  occasion  to  say,  these  benefices  were  at 
first  held  by  an  uncertain  tenure,  some  at  the  pleasure  of 
the  king,  others  for  life,  others  still  for  a  definite  term  of 
years.  But  as  is  always  the  case,  the  tendency  of  these 
gifts  was  to  perpetuate  themselves  in  the  hands  of  the  de- 
scendants of  the  original  holders  and  we  shortly  find  laws 
enacted  recognizing  the  principle  of  heredity  and  granting 
to  the  descendants  of  holders  of  benefices  the  same  privileges 
and  immunities  which  their  fathers  had  enjoyed  before  them. 
Thus  we  find  property  in  land  established  by  the  time  of 
Pippin  the  Short.  This  property  was  probably  subject  to 
some  form  of  taxation  such  as  gifts  to  the  king  or  lord  from 


170  The  History  of  Christianity 

whom  the  benefice  was  received,  but  no  regular  form  of 
taxation  was  resorted  to  and  certainly  the  right  in  the  land 
was  equivalent  to  a  fee  simple.  We  have  already  stated  that 
thought  was  slow  in  this  age.  Ideas  were  scarce ;  but  it  does 
not  take  a  great  amount  of  brain  energy  for  a  man  to  grasp 
the  idea  of  ownership.  "  This  is  mine  "  is  the  first  product 
of  brain  activity  in  a  child,  and  the  barbarian  child  has  at 
last  learned  this  lesson,  and  for  the  Germanic  race  has  been 
established  a  new  center  of  civilization.  The  only  form  of 
society  possible,  the  only  form  of  government  possible,  clus- 
tered around  these  new  centers  and  cut  themselves,  so  to 
speak,  to  the  measure  of  existing  ideas  and  relations.  The 
elements  of  these  petty  societies  and  petty  local  governments 
were  ready  made  at  hand.  The  possessor  of  benefices  by 
grant  from  the  king,  or  domains  occupied  by  conquest;  the 
counts,  dukes,  governors  of  provinces,  and  bishops,  which 
were  established  by  Charlemagne,  were  all  disseminated 
throughout  the  country,  and  all  held  large  tracts  of  land 
over  which  they  were  supreme.  Round  these  was  agglom- 
erated, voluntarily,  or  by  force,  the  neighboring  population, 
whether  free  or  in  bondage.  All  became  local,  because  all 
generality  was  vanished  from  interests,  existences,  and  minds. 
The  whole  Germanic  race  was  occupied  but  with  one  idea 
and,  in  fact,  had  no  room  for  more :  private  property.  A 
very  large  proportion  of  the  members  of  this  race  are  still 
living  within  this  stage  of  development,  and  are  still  giving 
their  time  and  energy  simply  to  the  transfer  of  property 
from  others  to  themselves.  Thus  were  formed  the  petty 
states  called  fiefs.  It  was  about  the  end  of  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury, and  when  the  last  of  the  Carolingian  race  was  on  the 
throne,  that  this  revolution  may  be  said  to  have  been  con- 
summated, and  the  new  order  of  things  fully  established. 

The  principle  of  imperalism  is  the  last  word  of  the  ex- 
piring past.  That  principle  secured  a  certain  equality  for 
mankind,  the  servitude  of  all  under  the  domination  of  orie. 
Society  could  not  accept  this  as  its  fundamental  organic 
principle.  The  opposing  principle  of  individualism,  which 
was  alike  rejected,  in  destroying  absolutism,  introduced  an- 
archy.    It  is  but  fair  to  say  that  feudalism  did  not  create, 


Elements  of  Feudalism  171 

but  regulated,  this  anarchy.  The  feudal  s^^stem  does  not, 
therefore,  present  the  phenomena  of  social  decay  but  rather 
of  social  progress.  It  has  been  very  generally  misunder- 
stood. 

It  is  now  our  purpose  to  consider  feudalism  in  its  com- 
ponent elements.  Upon  examination  we  will  always  discover 
present  in  this  historical  feudal  system  two  elements  very 
closely  united,  but  which  are  really  distinct,  and  which  must 
be  kept  apart  from  each  other  in  mind  if  we  are  to  under- 
stand the  origin  of  the  system.  One  of  these  elements  re- 
lates wholly  to  land  and  the  tenure  by  which  land  is  held. 
This  land  element  is  the  "  benefice,"  or  "  fief."  This  is  the 
"  feudal  molecule,"  or  simplest  element  of  feudalism.  It  is 
that  which  could  not  be  broken  without  the  feudal  character 
being  abolished ;  the  domain,  possessed  by  way  of  fief,  by  a 
lord  who  exercised  over  the  inhabitants  that  sovereignty 
which  is  inherent  in  property.  The  other  principle  is  the 
personal  relation,  the  bond  of  mutual  fidelity  and  protection 
which  binds  together  these  several  grades  in  the  feudal 
hierarchy.  This  personal  element  is  the  relation  of  lord  and 
tassal. 

There  are  several  institutions  which  sprang  into  existence 
during  the  later  Roman  Empire  which  are  worthy  of  our 
consideration,  as  they  furnish  us  the  beginnings  of  certain 
feudal  principles.  Roman  agriculturalists,  by  reason  of  the 
inroads  of  barbarians,  had  become  accustomed  to  give  up 
their  land  to  some  powerful  lord  who  could  grant  them 
the  necessary  protection,  and  to  receive  at  least  a  por- 
tion of  it  back  to  be  cultivated  by  them  as  tenants-at- 
ivill.  Such  a  holding  was  without  any  rent  or  obligations 
whatever,  and  was  known  by  the  legal  title  of  precariwm. 
The  holder  of  a  precarium  was  called  a  client,  and  the  insti- 
tution itself,  patrocininm.  This  plan  of  seeking  the  protec- 
tion of  some  powerful  local  lord  who  could  furnish  that  se- 
curity and  peace  which  the  empire  was  no  longer  able  to  do, 
had  become  quite  common,  especially  throughout  the  north- 
ern part  of  Italy  and  Dalmatia.  Many  poor  free  men  who 
had  lost  their  property  and  so  were  without  any  land 
through  which  they  could  secure  protection  above,  went  to 


172  The  History  of  Christianity 

a  lord  and  begged  his  protection,  claiming  they  were  no 
longer  able  to  protect  and  care  for  themselves.  The  lord, 
who  was  generally  ambitious  to  increase  his  dignity  and 
standing  in  the  community  by  having  as  large  a  body  of 
dependents  as  possible,  granted  to  these  petitioners  their 
request  and  enrolled  them  in  his  household,  asking  in  return 
such  services  only  as  were  not  beneath  the  dignity  of  a  free 
man  to  perform.  It  is  to  be  noted  that  these  obligations 
were  not  definite.  The  free  man  received  no  land  and  swore 
no  oath  of  fidelity.  "  The  personal  relation  or  clientage  did 
not  imply  at  all  the  reception  of  land,  and  holding  land  by 
the  precarium  tenure  involved  no  obligation  of  services." 

The  Franks,  as  well  as  other  Germanic  peoples,  had  insti- 
tutions very  similar  to  the  Roman  ones  which  we  have  just 
described.  Of  these  the  most  important  was  the  comitatus, 
or  gefolge.  *'  This  was  a  purely  personal  relationship  of 
mutual  protection,  service,  and  support  between  a  chief  and 
certain  men  .  .  .  voluntarily  entered  into  on  both  sides." 
It  was  looked  upon  as  conferring  honor  upon  the  lord  as 
well  as  upon  the  man,  and  was  entered  into  on  both  sides  by 
a  special  ceremonial,  and  sanctioned  by  a  solemn  oath,  and 
the  bond  of  personal  fidelity  established  by  it  was  considered 
to  be  of  the  most  sacred  and  binding  character.  No  grant 
of  land  accompanied  this,  however,  and  when  the  Franks 
settled  in  Gaul  and  scattered  over  a  wide  extent  of  territory, 
it  was  no  longer  possible  to  perform  the  duties  of  this  rela- 
tion, the  bond  of  the  gefolge  being  broken  by  this,  and  its 
spirit  lost. 

The  dominant  Roman  institution,  the  patrocinium,  lived 
on,  being  attached  to  the  soil,  while  the  comitatus  died,  at 
least  in  so  far  as  its  form  was  concerned.  The  explanation 
of  this  is  simple.  It  will  be  seen  that  the  Roman  practices 
in  this  respect  would  appear  perfectly  familiar  to  the  con- 
quering Frank,  and  as  they  settled  upon  the  land  and  be- 
came attached  to  the  soil,  the  gefolge  being  broken  up  and 
scattered,  they  passed  naturally  over  to  the  Roman  method 
of  binding  to  them  by  sub  grants  of  land,  a  new  body  of  de- 
pendents. Nevertheless  the  Roman  patrocininum  was  essen- 
tially modified  by  the  Germanic  usages.     The  personal  ele- 


Pre-Feudal  Use  of  the  Word  Vassal  173 

ment  was  carried  over  from  the  gefolge  to  the  patrocinium 
and  furnished  a  new  bond  or  contract  between  the  lord  and 
the  tenant.  By  it  the  tenant  was  secure  of  his  holding  while 
the  lord  was  assured  of  the  personal  services  upon  which  the 
holding  was  made  to  depend.  The  word  vassal  is  derived 
from  the  post-classical  Latin  word  va,  a  cow,  and  is,  there- 
fore, precisely  identical  with  the  word  feudal,  or  feodales, 
which  comes  from  the  German  word  fe,  or  vieh,  a  cow.  The 
word  vassus  was  first  used  as  the  title  of  an  unfree  servant, 
in  the  later  Roman  usage ;  thence  it  was  carried  over  to  the 
free  client  of  the  patrocinium  and  thus  became  a  distinctly 
honorable  title.  It  will  thus  be  seen  that  in  the  early  devel- 
opment of  feudalism  a  vassal  stood  one  step  above  an  ordi- 
nary freeman.  As  already  stated,  it  has  been  conclusively 
shown  that  German  kings,  or  failing  kings,  tribal  chiefs,  fol- 
lowing native  Germanic  ideas,  made  donations  of  land  with 
limited  tenure,  so  that  the  land  fell  back,  under  certain  con- 
ditions, to  the  donor.  From  this  method  to  that  of  the 
Roman  precarium,  the  transition  was  an  easy  one,  and  it 
would  appear  that  this  Roman  device  was  used  extensively 
by  German  private  land  owners  who  found  themselves  in  a 
situation  similar  to  that  of  the  Roman  agriculturalists.  By 
the  time  of  the  Carolingians  it  was  adopted  as  the  chief 
means  of  sub-infeudation.  In  tliis  carrying-over  process 
of  a  Roman  institution  into  German  usage,  the  church  was 
the  most  important  factor  and  made  frequent  use  of  the  pre- 
carium with  a  small  rental  attached.  Numerous  charters 
of  this  kind  of  grant  are  extant  bearing  dates  antedating 
the  reign  of  Charles  Martel.  Throughout  the  entire  Mero- 
vingian period  and  even  to  the  time  of  Charlemagne,  these 
institutions  remained  in  much  the  same  shape  in  which  they 
were  in  under  the  empire.  One  change  only  is  noticeable, 
and  that  is  a  very  important  one.  They  were  legalized. 
The  Roman  looked  upon  the  whole  scheme  of  the  precarium 
as  a  usurpation  which  he  vainly  tried  to  crush.  The  Franks 
saw  within  it  an  institution  of  their  own  but  slightlj^  modified 
to  suit  their  new  environment,  and  immediately  recognized 
its  legality.  Frankish  kings  frequently  made  use  of  it  with 
their  subjects,  thus  holding  them  in  closer  bonds  of  fealty. 


174  The  History  of  Christianity/ 

Originally  neither  of  these  primitive  Roman  institutions  had 
any  military  character  attached  to  them,  and  this  statement 
is  equally  true  of  the  Merovingian  period.  Of  course  it 
would  come  to  pass  in  such  a  troublous  time  as  that  in  which 
these  institutions  were  brought  into  being,  that  the  most 
frequent  services  needed  from  the  dependent  would  be  mili- 
tary, and  some  of  them  at  least  were  constantly  employed 
as  men-at-arms.  But  there  was  during  the  early  period  no 
necessary  connection  between  military  service  and  the  hold- 
ing of  lands,  or  the  personal  relationship.  If  these  existed 
they  existed  upon  a  separate  basis.  The  occasion  which  led 
to  the  beginning  of  this  change  was  the  attack  of  the  Arabs 
on  Gaul  and  the  necessity  of  forming  a  cavalry  force  to 
withstand  this.  The  Franks  to  this  time  always  fought  on 
foot,  as  did  the  other  Germanic  tribes,  but  when  Abderrah- 
man  appeared,  in  732,  with  his  host  of  cavalry  men,  and 
attempted  the  conquest  of  Gaul,  Charles  Martel  was  con- 
vinced that  the  only  way  to  defeat  him  was  by  organizing 
a  cavalry  force  as  an  aid  to  his  infantry.  How  was  he  to 
do  this?  The  citizen  was  already  oppressed  by  the  service 
he  was  rendering,  having  to  support  himself  and  furnish  his 
own  arms.  On  top  of  all  this  he  could  not  be  asked  to  fur- 
nish a  horse.  The  time  had  arrived  when  the  state  must 
come  to  the  aid  of  the  citizen  and  bear  at  least  a  portion 
of  the  expense  of  protection.  This  could  only  be  done  by 
grants  of  land,  as  a  system  of  equitable  taxation  was  wholly 
unknown  to  the  Frank  and,  indeed,  did  not  develop  vmtil 
much  later.  But  the  royal  domains  had  been  exhausted  by 
the  shiftless  Merovingian  kings.  There  remained,  therefore, 
only  one  way  open  and  this  Charles  did  not  hesitate  to  fol- 
low. The  church  had  landed  possessions  to  the  extent  of 
nearly  one-third  of  the  entire  territory.  It  had  been  the 
custom  for  some  time  for  the  state  to  assume  the  use  of 
small  portions  of  this  land,  in  scattered  tracts.  Charles, 
taking  this  custom  as  a  precedent,  now  confiscated  a  large 
portion  of  the  ecclesiastical  territory,  though  he  recognized 
the  ownership  of  the  church  by  laying  upon  the  lands  the 
payment  of  a  small  fee.  The  church  has  repaid  for  this 
high-handed,   but  necessary    act,   by   black-listing  him   and 


Military  Service  175 

giving  him  a  sorr}'  name  in  the  annals  of  his  time.  The 
monks  who  wrote  his  historj'  have  taken  great  delight  in 
painting  the  agonies  of  his  death  bed,  and  for  some  cen- 
turies, imitating  the  punishment  of  Sisj'phus,  had  his  bent 
and  blackened  spirit  rolling  stones  up  the  glowing  sides  of 
the  crater  of  Vesuvius.  The  land  which  Charles  secured  in 
this  way,  he  granted  to  vassals  of  his  own  on  condition  that 
they  furnish  mounted  soldiers  to  the  army.  This  created 
a  sort  of  new  body,  called  tenants-in-chief,  who  divided  the 
lands  thus  received,  among  their  own  followers,  in  the  same 
way.  For  this  purpose  the  old  Roman  precarium  furnished 
a  convenient  tenure,  and  the  records  of  the  church  show 
that  these  lands  were  generally  known  by  the  name  of  pre- 
caria  verbo  regis;  that  is,  lands  held  by  the  word  of  the 
king.  The  name  given  to  these  lands  by  the  common  people, 
resting  no  doubt  upon  the  action  of  the  king,  was  beneficium, 
our  word  benefice,  a  gift  made  with  certain  restrictions. 
This  is  the  beginning  of  the  institution  of  knighthood  and 
indicates  the  way  in  which  the  first  steps  were  taken  toward 
introducing  the  special  obligation  of  military  service  as  a 
condition  on  which  land  was  to  be  held.  This  process,  how- 
ever, extended  throughout  the  Carolingian  period  and  can 
not  be  said  to  have  been  completed  before  the  reign  of 
Charles  the  Simole. 

Charlemagne  attempted  to  reorganize  the  military  sys- 
tem or,  at  least,  to  enforce  the  laws  then  in  vogue.  His 
own  vast  military  expeditions  over  such  great  distances  and 
involving  constant  service,  taxed  to  the  utmost  the  poorer 
citizens,  who,  according  to  universal  German  custom,  had  to 
arm  and  support  themselves.  The}?^  tried  to  escape  from 
this  service  in  every  way  possible.  Charlemagne  first  en- 
acted that  several  of  these  free  men  should  unite  in  arming 
and  supporting  one  of  their  number,  this  one  to  render 
continual  service.  He  also  directed  that  the  vassals  of  pri- 
vate individuals  should  perform  military  service  in  the  same 
manner  as  did  the  vassals  of  the  king.  Next,  he  enacted 
that  the  lord  should  be  held  responsible  for  the  equipment 
and  appearance  of  his  vassals  at  the  appointed  time,  or  pay 
a   fine    for    their   failure.     Under    this   plan   they    were   all 


176  The  History  of  Christianity 

marshalled  under  officers  appointed  by  Charlemagne,  and 
organized  after  the  pattern  of  the  Romans.  All  these  regu- 
lations seemed  to  have  little  or  no  effect  and  the  difficulty 
of  obtaining  men  increased.  Some  further  change  had  to 
be  made  or  the  army  fall  off  in  strength.  As  a  last  resort 
Charlemagne  ordained  that  the  vassals  should  hereafter 
come  into  the  field  under  the  command  of  their  own  lords  in- 
stead of  being  absorbed  into  the  general  levy.  Whether 
anticipated  or  not,  this  plan  appealed  to  a  weakness  of 
human  nature.  The  natural  desire  of  every  lord  to  appear 
under  the  eyes  of  his  king  with  a  body  of  vassals  at  least 
equal  to  any  other  lord  accomplished  what  law  could  not 
accomplish,  and  henceforth  there  was  no  scarcity  of  men. 
But  the  result  of  all  this  was  to  make  the  army  almost  en- 
tirely a  feudal  army,  the  state  henceforth  depending  not 
upon  citizens,  as  of  old,  but  upon  vassals  who  served  as  a 
duty  growing  out  of  their  holding  of  land.  In  this  way  it 
came  to  pass  that  perhaps  the  most  important  duty  of  citi- 
zenship, that  of  defending  the  state,  was  transformed  from 
a  public  obligation,  which  rested  upon  every  free  man,  into 
a  matter  of  private  contract,  and,  so,  became  one  of  the 
ordinary  conditions  incident  upon  land  holding. 

While  the  transformations  in  method  of  land  holding  and 
military  service  described  above  were  taking  place,  another 
change  no  less  important  was  being  brought  about  in  regard 
to  legal  jurisdiction.  The  process  by  which  this  transfor- 
mation was  accomplished  can  not  be  traced  with  the  same 
clearness  and  exactness  as  in  the  case  of  the  military,  above. 
It  is  certain,  however,  that  judicial  functions  passed  over 
from  the  state  into  the  hands  of  private  individuals  and  be- 
came, like  the  military  duty,  attached  to  the  soil.  "  In  this 
way  the  great  fiefs  came  to  possess  what  the  French  feudal 
law  called  'justice' — jurisdictio  —  that  is,  full  sover- 
eignty, so  that  the  state  was  practically  excluded  from  all 
contact  with  any  persons  residing  within  the  limits  of  the 
field."  We  have  previously  stated  that  the  process  of  this 
change  was  not  fully  known.  It  is  certain,  however,  that 
it  was  aided  by  the  "  immunities."  These  were  grants 
of  privilege  to  churches  or  to  private  individuals,  by  virtue 


Geographical  Extent  of  Territory  177 

of  which  the  ordinary  officers  of  the  state  were  forbidden  all 
entry  upon  the  specified  domain,  and  the  owner  took  the 
place  of  the  regular  officers  of  the  state.  He  was  not  made 
independent  of  the  state,  but  only  of  the  state's  officers ;  but 
it  must  be  considered  a  long  step  toward  the  development 
of  private  jurisdiction  and  virtual  independence.  In  some 
cases  this  will  account  for  the  sovereignty  of  the  fief.  Oth- 
ers there  were  who,  no  doubt,  purchased  the  right  of  levying 
and  collecting  their  own  taxes  (ferm)  and  adjudicating  their 
own  cases,  both  civil  and  criminal,  as  was  the  case  with 
many  English  boroughs.  Add  to  these  the  ever  present 
element  of  usurpation  and  we  have  a  likely  theory  at  least 
for  the  establishment  of  feudal  judicial  independence  which 
became  almost  universal  by  the  time  of  Louis  IX  of  France. 
The  courts  thus  established,  or  controlled,  retained  their  fun- 
damental principles  unchanged.  The  vassals  now  came  to- 
gether as  did  formerly  the  citizens  (free  men)  in  the  old 
courts  of  the  village  community  or  the  hundreds.  They  still 
pronounced  judgment  in  all  cases  brought  before  them,  en- 
acted the  local  laws,  and  interpreted  or  stated  the  local 
custom. 

While  the  changes  mentioned  above  were  taking  place  the 
great  public  offices  of  state  were  becoming  hereditary  and, 
consequently,  localized. 

The  geographical  extent  of  territory  depended  upon  cir- 
cumstances. The  most  decisive  of  these  circumstances  was 
the  personal  ability  of  the  successive  generations  of  lords, 
their  success  in  preserving  some  considerable  show  of  order 
and  security,  and  making  their  government  respected  and 
feared  over  a  larger  or  smaller  extent  of  territory,  and  espe- 
cially their  prowess  in  compelling  outlying  holders  of  land 
of  less  strength  to  recognize  their  supremacy.  If  they  Avere 
powerful  men  and  at  the  same  time  good  organizers,  then 
their  lands  continually  increased  until  they  reached  the 
boundaries  of  some  other  lord  as  powerful  as  themselves.  If 
they  were  weak  men,  then  they  were  taken  advantage  of  both 
by  their  rivals  who  overran  and  pillaged  them,  and  by  their 
vassals  who  never  hesitated  to  declare  their  own  independ- 
ence whenever  opportunity  presented  itself.     Fiefs  grew  on 


1T8  The  History  of  Christianity 

the  one  hand  by  absorbing  small  allodial  holdings  and  turn- 
ing them  into  "  benefices,"  while,  on  the  other  hand,  they 
shrank  up  by  vassals  succeeding  in  making  their  benefices 
free.  Both  the  number  and  size  of  fiefs  varied  continually, 
until,  by  the  growth  of  royal  power,  they  were  gradually 
absorbed  into  the  central  state.  It  may  be  well  to  state  that 
the  various  titles  of  nobility  gave  no  accurate  idea  of  the 
size  of  the  holding.  It  very  frequently  happened  that  the 
territory  of  a  viscount  was  greater  than  that  of  a  count  and 
even  embraced  the  latter  within  its  borders.  An  ordinary 
lord  oftentimes  surpassed  a  duke  in  the  extent  of  his  hold- 
ings. 

"  In  general,  from  the  tenth  to  the  beginning  at  least  of 
the  thirteenth  century,  the  political  aspect  of  western  Eu- 
rope was  thoroughly  feudal,  and  even  in  those  parts  of  the 
country  where  allodial  lands  largely  predominated,  as  for 
example  in  central  France,  the  state  was  as  weak  as  else- 
where, and  the  local  government  as  completely  local." 

We  have  now  traced  as  completely  as  space  allows  the 
origin  and  development  of  the  feudal  system.  The  insignifi- 
cant Roman  institutions  which  had  sprung  out  of  local  and 
transient  needs,  vitalized  with  the  personal  element  of  the 
old  comitatus,  have  developed  into  a  political  organization 
extending  over  the  whole  of  Europe  and  virtually  supplant- 
ing the  national  government.  The  need  of  security  and 
protection  had  produced  this  change.  Men  had  taken  to 
the  castle  because  the  power  of  the  state  had  been  broken 
so  that  it  was  no  longer  able  to  grant  personal  security. 
There  was  an  almost  total  absence  of  all  the  elements  which 
go  to  make  a  stable  government  and  the  reason  for  this 
lack  is  found  in  the  condition  of  society.  The  Germans, 
when  they  succeeded  to  the  empire,  had  taken  upon  them- 
selves a  task  too  difficult  for  them  to  perform.  This  is  only 
another  way  of  stating  the  fact  that  the  Germanic  invasions 
were  followed  by  a  temporary  decline  in  civilization.  This 
was  true  in  political  order  just  as  well  as  in  literature  and 
science. 

We  have  so  far  had  some  idea  of  the  condition  of  things 
in  the  completely  feudalized  state,  and  of  the  character  of 


Lawyers'  Theory  of  Feudalism  179 

feudalism  as  a  political  organization.  The  perfected  form 
which  the  lawyers  finally  gave  to  the  feudal  theory  as  a  mat- 
ter of  land  law  and  of  social  rank  is  undoubtedly  the  source 
of  the  popular  idea  that  the  feudal  system  was  a  much 
more  definitely  arranged  and  systematized  organization  than 
it  ever  was  in  practice.  With  us,  doubtless,  the  CorriTnen- 
taries  of  Blackstone  are  probably,  more  than  any  other  sin- 
gle source,  responsible  for  this  impression,  as  they  are  for 
other  ideas  of  history  which  are  not  by  any  means  correct. 
Blackstone  says,  speaking  of  the  introduction  of  feudalism 
as  a  result  of  the  Norman  conquest :  "  This  new  polity 
therefore  seems  not  to  have  been  imposed  by  the  conqueror, 
but  nationally  and  freely  adopted  by  the  general  assembly 
of  the  whole  nation,  in  the  same  manner  as  other  nations  of 
Europe  had  before  adopted  it,  upon  the  same  principle  of 
self-security,  and,  in  particular,  they  had  the  recent  exam- 
ple of  the  French  nation  before  their  eyes,  which  had  grad- 
ually surrendered  up  all  its  allodial  or  free  lands  into  the 
king's  hands,  who  restored  them  to  the  owners  as  a  bene- 
ficium  or  feud,  to  be  held  by  them  and  such  of  their  heirs  as 
they  previously  nominated  to  the  king,  and  thus  by  degrees 
all  the  allodial  estates  in  France  were  converted  into  feuds, 
and  the  free-men  became  vassals  of  the  crown.  The  only 
difference  between  this  change  of  tenure  in  France  and  that 
in  England  was,  that  the  former  was  effected  gradually,  by 
the  consent  of  private  persons ;  the  latter  was  done  all  at 
once,  all  over  England,  by  the  common  consent  of  the  na- 
tion." 

Of  course  no  such  facts  as  these  ever  occurred  either  in 
France  or  England.  The  lawyers,  however,  did  form  such 
a  theory  as  this  of  the  feudal  state  and  it  is  but  natural  that 
the  popular  notion  should  be  something  like  this : 

(a)  The  ownership  of  all  the  soil  of  the  kingdom  is  vested 
in  the  king. 

(b)  The  extent  of  this  territory  is  so  great  that  he  can- 
not cultivate  it  all  himself,  while  on  the  other  hand,  he  is 
involved  in  great  expenses  as  the  head  of  the  state,  for  pro- 
tection and  the  administering  of  public  functions,  the  build- 
ing of  roads,  and  the  enforcing  of  laws.     To  obtain  needed 


180  The  History  of  Christianity 

funds  and  forces,  he  parcels  out  the  entire  kingdom  into  a 
certain  number  of  large  divisions,  each  of  which  he  grants 
to  a  single  man,  who  gives  a  binding  promise  to  assume  a 
certain  specified  portion  of  these  public  obligations  in  return 
for  the  land  which  is  granted  him.  So  long  as  he  fulfills 
these  duties  he  continues  to  hold  these  lands,  and  his  heirs 
after  him  have  the  same  privileges  so  long  as  they  perform 
the  required  obligations.  In  case  he  fails  or  refuses  to  per- 
form the  obligations,  the  king  may  resume  his  lands  and 
grant  them  to  some  more  faithful  vassal. 

(c)  These  great  barons,  created  in  the  above  manner  by 
the  king,  divided  their  lands  among  their  vassals  whose  united 
services  enable  them  to  meet  their  obligations  to  the  king. 
"  These  vassals  subdivided  again,  by  like  process  of  *'  sub- 
infeudation "  and  so  on  down  to  the  knight's  fee,  or  lowest 
subdivision  of  the  feudal  system,  a  piece  of  land  large  enough 
to  support  and  arm  a  single  warrior  of  noble  condition." 

This,  in  brief,  is  the  story  of  the  lawyers  and  the  idea  of 
feudalism  which  generally  prevails.  It  has  a  general  cor- 
respondence to  the  actual  facts  which  prevailed  from  the 
beginning  of  the  tenth  century.  As  we  have  seen,  public 
duties  were  transformed,  in  a  large  measure,  into  private 
services  which  were  rewarded  by  grants  of  land,  and  the 
state  did  depend  upon  the  land-owners  for  protection  and 
sustenance.  But  no  one  of  these  tendencies  was  completely 
realized  in  the  actual  feudalism  of  any  country  of  Europe. 
The  pattern  was  far  less  regular  than  this  theory  would  in- 
dicate and  the  law  of  feudalism,  instead  of  being  uniform  in 
minor  details,  was  simply  and  purely  customary  law  formed 
by  each  locality  for  itself  to  suit  its  own  needs.  Thus  it 
would  seem  that  the  feudal  system  was  "  confusion  roughly 
organized." 

With  this  preliminary  discussion  we  may  with  approxi- 
mate exactness  define  Feudalism  as  follows :  "  Feudalism 
is  a  form  of  political  organization  which  allows  the  state 
to  separate  into  as  minute  fragments  as  it  will,  virtually  in- 
dependent of  one  another  and  of  the  state,  without  the  total 
destruction  of  its  own  life  with  which  such  an  experience 
would  seem  to  threaten  every  general  government." 


Description  of  the  Castle  181 

It  now  seems  necessary,  after  tracing  the  origin  of  the 
feudal  institution  and  reaching  a  general  concept  and  defini- 
tion, to  enter  into  the  central  life  of  the  institution,  the  feud, 
and  see  if  we  can  understand  its  spirit.  When  reduced  to 
its  last  analysis  the  simple  fief  contains  two  elements :  ( a ) 
The  castle  with  its  occupant,  the  proprietor  of  the  fief;  and 
(b)  the  village,  containing  the  possessors,  or  cultivators  of 
the  domain,  who  are  subject  to  the  proprietor.  It  is  very 
necessary  for  us  to  know  what  was  the  condition  and  the 
destiny  from  the  eleventh  to  the  fourteenth  century,  of  these 
two  elements,  the  castle  with  its  proprietor,  and  the  village 
with  its  inhabitants. 

(a)  I  can  do  no  better  than  to  borrow  a  description  of 
a  castle  from  the  celebrated  work  of  M.  Manteil,  as  quoted 
by  Guizot.  "  First  imagine  to  yourself  a  superb  position, 
a  steep  mountain,  bristling  with  rocks,  furrowed  with  ra- 
vines, and  precipices.  Upon  the  declivity  is  the  castle.  Tlie 
small  houses  which  surround  it  set  off  its  grandeur;  the 
Indre  seems  to  turn  aside  with  respect ;  it  forms  a  large 
semi-circle  at  its  feet.  This  castle  must  be  seen  when,  at 
sunrise,  the  outward  galleries  glimmer  wdth  the  armor  of 
the  sentinels,  and  the  towers  are  shown  all  brilliant  with 
their  large  new  gratings.  Those  high  buildings  must 
be  seen,  which  fill  those  who  defend  them  with  courage, 
and  with  fear  those  who  should  be  tempted  to  attack 
them. 

"  The  door  presents  itself  all  covered  with  heads  of  boars 
or  wolves,  flanked  with  turrets  and  covered  with  a  high  guard 
house.  Enter ;  there  are  three  enclosures,  three  moats,  three 
drawbridges  to  pass.  You  find  yourself  in  a  large  square 
court,  where  are  cisterns,  and  on  the  right  and  left,  the  sta- 
bles, hen-house,  pigeon-houses,  coach-houses ;  the  cellars, 
vaults,  and  prisons  are  below ;  above  these  are  the  magazine, 
larders,  or  salting-rooms,  and  arsenals.  All  the  roofs  are 
bordered  with  machicolations,  parapets,  guard-walks,  and 
sentry-boxes.  In  the  middle  of  the  court  Is  the  donjon, 
which  contains  the  archives  and  the  treasures.  It  is  deeph' 
moated  all  round,  and  can  only  be  entered  by  a  bridge  almost 
always  raised.     Although  the  walls,  like  those  of  the  castle, 


182  The  History  of  Christianity 

are  six  feet  thick,  it  is  surrounded  up  to  half  its  height  with 
a  chemise,  or  second  wall  of  large  cut  stone." 

All  idea  of  art  or  convenience  was  wholly  foreign  to  the 
construction  of  these  castles.  They  presented  no  idea  of  the 
agreeable;  defense,  safety,  was  the  only  idea  manifested  in 
them.  The  steepest  and  most  savage  places  were  chosen  by 
these  mediaeval  architects  and  there  the  edifice  was  raised, 
destined  solely  to  repel  attacks  effectually,  and  to  shut  up 
the  inhabitants.  All  classes  of  mediaeval  society  protected 
themselves  in  this  way ;  burghers  and  lords,  ecclesiastics  and 
laymen.  The  whole  country  was  covered  with  them  and  they 
all  had  the  same  character,  that  of  haunts  and  asylums. 
Safety  was  obtainable  in  no  other  way. 

So  much  for  the  dwelling,  but  what  was  the  life  within.'* 
What  influence  must  have  been  brought  to  bear  upon  the 
dweller  in  such  a  habitation,  and  the  material  circumstances 
which  arose  from  it?  In  other  words,  what  was  feudal  soci- 
ety? Here  man  dwelt  alone  and  had  no  society  save  his  own 
immediate  family.  He  had  no  occupation  and  performed  no 
duties  of  any  kind.  In  the  early  days  of  Rome  it  was  no 
uncommon  thing  for  the  nobility  to  labor  in  the  field.  Thus 
it  was  that  Cincinnatus  was  found  ploughing  in  the  field  when 
the  messenger  arrived  summoning  him  to  be  dictator  of 
Rome.  Not  so  this  noble  German.  He  scorned  each  and 
every  form  of  labor.  It  was  not  he  who  tilled  the  ground 
and  trained  the  vine;  he  did  not  even  hunt  for  support;  he 
had  no  political  activity.  Says  Guizot,  "  Never  has  there 
been  such  leisure  and  such  isolation."  He  was  distinctly  a 
warrior  and  occupied  his  time  in  incursions,  pillages,  wars, 
and  robberies.  It  was  in  such  occupations  as  these  that  he 
found  his  pleasure.  It  was  only  from  such  a  condition  as 
this  that  those  wonderful  crusades  could  ever  have  emanated. 
Here,  living  alone,  abandoned  to  himself,  to  the  originality 
of  his  own  nature,  and  the  caprices  of  his  own  imagination, 
unchecked  by  any  law  and  unrestrained  by  any  refinement 
of  feeling,  he  lived  the  life  of  a  noble  beast ;  brutal,  ferocious, 
cruel,  but  in  all  things  singular,  strange,  almost  fantastic. 
It  is  almost  impossible  for  a  modem  reader  to  get  any  true 
concept  or  form  any  just  opinion  of  the  life  of  this  man. 


Feudal  Society  183 

Do  you  wonder  why  it  took  so  long  to  civilize  this  man? 
The  most  prominent  characteristic  of  feudal  society  was 
stubbornness.  It  had  inherited  all  the  strength,  tenacity  of 
purpose  and  stubborn  courage  of  the  Germanic  races.  Into 
no  other  society  had  new  ideas,  or  manners,  had  so  much 
trouble  to  penetrate.  Civilization  was  more  slow  and  diffi- 
cult here  than  in  any  other  age.  Progress  walked  with  halt- 
ing step  and  justice  slumbered  on  the  way.  All  this  was  due 
to  natural  circumstances.  Isolated  within  his  castle,  sur- 
rounded by  an  inferior  and  generally  despised  population, 
obliged  to  seek  afar  afF,  and  by  violent  means,  society  and 
activity  which  he  did  not  have  about  him,  his  own  nature 
partook  of  this  isolation  and  solitariness.  He  was  formed 
very  largely  by  his  environment.  Civilization  is,  after  all, 
the  product  of  ideas,  and  the  walls,  the  moats,  the  ramparts, 
the  turrets  of  his  castle,  shut  out  thought  as  well  as  the 
enemy,  and  civilization  had  to  wait  for  cannon  to  batter  down 
the  walls  before  it  could  enter  in  and  possess  the  land.  Not- 
withstanding the  castle  for  so  many  years  closed  its  doors 
to  civilization  from  without,  there  was  yet  a  principle  of 
civilization  at  work  within.  The  walls  protected  the  develop- 
ment of  sentiments  and  manners  which  have  played  a  power- 
ful and  beneficent  part  in  modem  society.  The  complete 
and  happy  development  of  domestic  life,  which  is  the  crown- 
ing glory  of  modem  civilization,  and  the  respect  in  which 
woman  is  universally  held  are  in  large  measure  due  to  this 
long  period  of  social  isolation.  Here  it  was  that  the  family, 
father,  mother,  and  children,  lived  in  such  close  relationship, 
so  bound  and  pressed  together,  so  dependent  upon  one  an- 
other for  social  intercourse  and  entertainment,  that  a  bond 
of  love,  of  common  sympathy,  and  of  common  danger,  seemed 
to  hold  the  several  family  members  together  as  nowhere  else. 
It  was  here  that  the  native  coarseness  and  dominating  spirit 
of  the  lord  were  softened  and  toned  down.  Here  he  learned 
to  love  and  protect  those  that  were  dependent ;  to  temper  jus- 
tice with  mercy. 

(b)  But  we  must  pass  down  the  hill  and  become  acquainted 
with  the  occupants  of  the  little  cluster  of  huts  at  its  foot, 
the  tributary  population  that  cultivated  the  domains  of  the 


184  The  History  of  Christianity 

lord.  Nothing  defends  this  village ;  nothing  shelters  it ;  it 
is  exposed  to  all  dangers  and  is  a  prey  to  continual  vicissi- 
tudes ;  all  the  storms  burst  with  full  fury  upon  it ;  the  four 
winds  of  heaven  are  here  unrestrained.  "  No  population 
ever  lived  more  utterly  destitute  of  peace  and  security,  aban- 
doned to  a  more  violent  incessantly  renewed  movement." 
Considered  in  itself  this  situation  was  unconditionally  and 
radically  vicious.  There  was  nothing  morally  common  be- 
tween the  holder  of  the  fief  and  the  serfs  that  tilled  his  soil. 
They  were  frequently  of  different  race.  They  formed  part 
of  his  estate;  they  were  his  property  in  the  full  sense  of  the 
word.  It  is  impossible,  however,  to  suppose  that  any  people 
could  live  in  such  close  union  without  having  some  bond  of 
sympathy  uniting  them.  So  slaves  were  often  held  in  highest 
respect  and  even  love  by  their  masters.  It  so  happened  that 
the  kindliest  feelings  ofttimes  grew  up  between  the  "  hill  and 
the  valley."  This  feeling,  however,  was  wholly  independent 
of  the  bonds  uniting  them. 

By  an  analysis  of  that  which  precedes  we  will  discover  two 
fundamental  feudal  principles.  The  first  is  that  peculiar 
theory  of  territorial  proprietorship  according  to  which  own- 
ership was  vested  in  one,  the  lord  or  suzerain,  while  posses- 
sion was  enjoyed  by  another,  the  "  man,"  or  "vassal."  The 
second  of  these  principles  was  the  inseparable  union  of  pro- 
prietorship with  sovereignty.  It  has  already  been  made 
clear  that  the  basis  of  all  feudality  was  proprietorship. 
During  this  regime  government  was  never  administered  by 
feudal  kings  upon  any  other  basis  than  that  of  senior  lord 
or  proprietor.  This  is,  indeed,  the  explanation  of  the  state- 
ment of  Louis  XIV  of  France,  "  I  am  the  State."  He  looked 
upon  himself  as  the  owner  of  all  France  and,  as  such,  brooked 
no  interference  with  his  management  of  the  estate.  If  this 
idea  which  lies  at  the  base  of  all  feudalism  is  thoroughly  un- 
derstood, it  will  greatly  simplify  this  otherwise  complex  sys- 
tem of  government. 

If,  now,  we  contrast  the  Roman,  or  magisterial,  idea  of 
jurisdiction  with  the  feudal  concept  that  took  its  place,  we 
will  see  how  great  a  change  has  been  wrought.  In  the  for- 
mer, the  idea  of  government  was  delegated  from  above  and 


Obligations  of  a   Vassal  to  His  Suzerain  185 

was,  therefore,  impersonal,  divine.  The  individual  had 
nothing  whatever  to  do  with  it.  In  the  latter,  govern- 
ment sprang  from  within  as  a  necessary  adjunct  of  the  own- 
ership of  the  land.  It  was,  therefore,  personal  and  responsi- 
ble ;  a  long  step  toward  democracy. 

During  the  flourishing  period  of  feudalism  the  name  vas- 
sal was  not  tainted  with  ignominy  as  it  afterwards  became. 
The  relation  of  lord  and  vassal,  being  important  and  digni- 
fied, was  established  by  certain  traditional  formalities. 
These  were  divided  into  homage  and  fealty,  on  the  part  of 
the  man  receiving  the  fief,  and  investiture,  on  the  part  of 
the  person  bestowing  it.  The  two  acts  of  homage  and  fealty 
were  usually  performed  at  the  same  time.  The  person  who 
was  to  become  the  vassal  kneeled  before  the  lord  and  placed 
his  two  hands  pressed  together  in  those  of  the  latter,  Avho 
then  raised  him  from  his  kneeling  position  and  gave  him  the 
kiss  of  peace.  Following  this,  the  oath  of  fealty  was  taken 
upon  the  Gospels,  or  some  relic  deemed  sacred  by  the  con- 
tracting parties.  The  accomplishment  of  these  two  solemn 
acts  transformed  the  person  performing  them  into  the  lord's 
vassal,  or  man.  At  first  this  contract  was  unwritten,  but  by 
the  middle  of  the  twelfth  century  fealty  and  homage  had 
merged  into  one  act  and  a  record  of  the  ceremony  was  kept 
in  writing.  This  record  was  called  an  aveu  and  was  the 
report  of  the  act  by  which  an  individual  had  "  avowed  "  him- 
self the  man  of  some  lord.  At  the  same  time  that  the  lord, 
or  suzerain,  received  the  homage  of  his  man,  he  handed  to 
him  some  material  object  which  symbolized  the  fief.  This 
part  of  the  ceremony  was  known  as  investiture.  The  investi- 
ture of  a  field  was  represented  by  a  clod,  of  a  forest  by  a 
branch ;  a  prelate  was  given  gloves,  a  crosier,  and  a  pastoral 
ring.  This  ceremony  of  investiture  was  also  put  in  written 
form  in  the  twelfth  century.  Thus  it  was  that  in  the  later 
years  of  feudalism,  the  whole  ceremony  was  represented  by 
two  documents ;  one,  drawn  up  in  the  presence  of  a  notary, 
witnessing  the  taking  of  the  oath  of  fealty  and  homage,  the 
other  containing  the  aveu  and  denombrement,  or  written  de- 
scription of  all  that  the  fief  comprised.  These  documents 
were  placed  in  the  safe  keeping  of  the  lord  and  furnished 


186  The  History  of  Christianity 

sufficient  evidence  for  the  transference  of  a  fief  and  the  obli- 
gations attached  thereto. 

The  vassal  was  expected  to  pay  for  his  holding  with 
services.  If  he  withheld  his  services  he  forfeited  his  fief. 
These  services  were  considered  noble;  they  consisted  chiefly 
of  military  service  and  judicial  service.  Military  service 
was  at  the  demand  of  the  lord  paramount  and  had  to  be 
rendered  at  the  expense  of  the  vassal.  He  was  expected  to 
present  himself  fiilly  armed  and  mounted.  Throughout  the 
feudal  period  the  Latin  word  miles  must  always  be  under- 
stood as  meaning  knight,  as  service  on  horseback  was  the 
only  kind  recognized  in  the  feudal  contract.  The  obligation 
of  military  service  was  quickly  limited  to  a  definite  time, 
forty  days  being  usually  considered  as  its  limit,  and  this  but 
once  a  year.  Whenever  the  lord  administered  justice  he 
called  his  vassals  to  him,  and  it  was  their  duty  to  attend  his 
court,  not  only  to  aid  in  the  administration  of  justice,  but 
for  themselves  to  be  judged  in  case  of  need.  They  rendered 
their  customary  aid  when  the  lord  was  a  prisoner,  to  ransom 
him ;  when  he  knighted  his  eldest  son,  for  the  expenses ;  when 
he  married  his  eldest  daughter,  for  her  wedding  portion. 

As  we  have  already  stated,  if  the  vassal  failed  in  the  dis- 
charge of  his  duties  he  was  considered  a  traitor  and  his  lord 
might  confiscate  his  fief;  but  so  long  as  he  was  faithful  to 
his  obligations,  the  lord  was  bound  to  support  him  in  his  fief 
and  defend  him  against  every  enemy.  He  must  see  that  his 
vassal  obtained  justice,  either  in  his  own  court  or  that  of 
his  superior  lord. 

The  lord  drew  revenues  from  various  sources;  (1)  those 
due  him  as  sovereign  with  royal  rights,  such  as  aids,  judicial 
fees,  the  fee  of  shipwreck,  his  claim  to  all  goods  that  had  no 
proprietor,  the  property  of  all  outsiders  who  died  on  his 
soil,  and  etc;  (2)  the  revenues  which  he  received  as  landed 
proprietor,  which  varied  extensively,  but  which  consisted  of 
the  regular  products  of  the  domain,  and  the  irregular  re- 
turns of  the  lands  held  under  the  various  feudal  and  non- 
feudal  tenures. 

During  the  growth  of  the  institution  of  feudalism,  even  the 
church    became    feudalized.     This    process    was    begun    b3' 


Feudalism  and  the  Church  187 

Charlemagne.  "  Out  of  his  universal  empire  in  the  West 
and  out  of  his  Institutes  rose,  to  a  great  degree,  the  uni- 
versal empire  of  the  church  and  the  whole  mediaeval  polity; 
feudalism  itself."  Charlemagne  bestowed  with  munificent 
hand  vast  tracts  of  land  and  other  property  upon  churches 
and  monasteries.  He  endowed  the  church  of  St.  Martin,  in 
Tours,  with  lands  in  Italy.  He  also  made  munificent  grants 
to  St.  Denys,  to  Lorch,  to  Fulda,  to  Prum,  and  Hersfeld,  as 
well  as  many  Italian  abbeys.  In  these  fiefs  the  bishop  or 
abbot  exercised  all  the  rights  of  a  feudal  chieftain.  At  first, 
like  all  seigniorial  privileges,  their  administration  was  lim- 
ited, with  appeal  to  a  higher  court,  or  in  the  last  resort,  to 
the  king.  Gradually  they  acquired  power  over  all  causes  and 
all  persons,  while  the  right  of  appeal  fell  into  desuetude. 
The  church,  by  this  plan,  continually  grew  richer  and  richer. 
We  have  one  celebrated  example  of  this  in  the  inventory 
furnished  by  the  abbot  of  St.  Germain  des  Pres,  Irminon: 
"  It  appears  from  this  list,  or  register,  that  the  abbey,  before 
being  pillaged  by  Normans,  owned  nearly  one  hundred  thou- 
sand acres,  on  which  were  living  about  three  thousand  fami- 
lies, and  which  brought  in  at  least  two  millions  in  revenues." 
As  the  feudal  system  became  finally  established,  abbots  con- 
tinued to  be  important  persons,  and  were  often  employed  at 
the  king's  court,  but  they  were  far  from  being  the  most  im- 
portant persons  in  the  hierarchy.  Bishops  became  actual 
feudal  lords,  with  their  mesne,  that  is,  their  land  considered 
as  a  whole,  from  whose  revenues  they  lived,  they  and  their 
clerical  household.  They  also  held,  in  the  same  way,  vas- 
sals, from  whom  they  exacted  homage  and  services.  Abbeys 
were  often  granted  to  bishops  as  a  portion  of  their  feudal 
holdings.  Besides  their  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction,  to  which 
their  priests  were  subject,  they  exercised  also  high  and  low 
justice  over  their  men.  They  acknowledged  feudal  obliga- 
tions to  the  king  like  any  other  vassals,  and  as  they  them- 
selves were  forbidden  to  perform  military  service,  this  duty 
was  performed  for  them  by  one  or  more  of  their  vassals. 
"  Thus  the  hierarchy,  now  a  feudal  institution,  parallel  to 
and  coordinate  with  the  temporal  feudal  aristocracy,  aspired 
to  enjoy  and  actually  before  long  did  enjoy,  the  dignity,  the 


188  The  History  of  Christianity 

wealth,  the  power  of  suzerain  lords.  Bishops  and  abbots 
had  the  independence  and  privileges  of  inalienable  fiefs ;  and 
at  the  same  time  began  either  sullenly  to  contest,  or  haugh- 
tily to  refuse,  those  payments  or  acknowledgments  of  vas- 
salage, which  sometimes  weighed  heavily  on  other  lands. 
During  the  reign  of  Charlemagne  this  theory  of  spiritual 
immunity  slumbered,  or  rather  had  not  quickened  into  life. 
It  was  boldly  (so  rapid  was  its  growth)  announced  in  the 
strife  with  his  son,  Louis  the  Pious.  It  was  then  asserted  by 
the  hierarchy  (become  king-maker  and  king-deposer)  that 
all  property  given  to  the  church,  to  the  poor,  and  to  the  serv- 
ants of  God,  or  rather  to  the  saints,  to  God  himself  (such 
Were  the  specious  phrases)  was  given  absolutely,  irrevocably, 
with  no  reserve.  The  king  might  have  power  over  knights' 
fees,  over  those  of  the  church  he  had  none  whatever.  Such 
claims  were  imperious,  sacrilegious,  and  implied  forfeiture  of 
eternal  life.  The  clergy  and  their  estates  belonged  to  an- 
other realm,  another  commonwealth;  they  were  entirely,  ab- 
solutely independent  of  the  civil  power.  The  clergy  be- 
longed to  the  Herr-bann  of  Christ,  and  of  Christ  alone." 

To  a  person  who  comes  to  the  study  of  feudalism  with  fixed 
ideas  of  government  and  polity  gathered  from  Roman  im- 
perialism, this  form  of  government  must  seem  strangely  like 
anarchy  and  confusion.  And  yet  there  is  an  enormous  dif- 
ference between  a  society  which  has  thrown  off  all  common 
bonds  and  actually  broken  into  fragments  that  are  wholly 
isolated,  and  another  in  which,  however  fragmentary  in  ap- 
pearance, a  lively  and  constantly  recognized  theory  keeps 
in  remembrance  the  rights  and  prerogatives  of  the  central 
government  and  asserts  without  ceasing  that  there  is  a  vital 
bond  of  union  between  all  the  fragments. 

It  is  this  that  feudalism  did.  It  was  an  arrangement 
suited  to  crude  and  barbarous  times,  by  which  an  advanced 
political  organization  belonging  to  a  more  orderly  civiliza- 
tion might  be  carried  through  such  times  without  destruc- 
tion. It  was  at  best  but  class  civilization  in  which  the  entire 
population  was  divided  into  two  strata ;  those  with  rights, 
growing  out  of  the  feudal  contract,  and  those  without  rights. 
By  this  system  personal  loyalty  was  developed  in  contrast 


Summary  189 

with  submission  to  positive  law,  and  certain  germs  of  liberty 
were  kept  alive  and  fostered  under  a  contract  entered  into 
by  every  individual  recognized  in  the  feudal  state.  It  was 
far  from  an  ideal  government ;  it  was  far  from  the  govern- 
ment which  Charlemagne  intended  to  establish,  but  it  held 
the  germs  of  personal  liberty,  and  was  a  great  advance  over 
no  government. 

The  result  of  man's  attempts  up  to  this  time,  to  found  a 
rational  civilization,  may  be  estimated  thus :  The  Roman 
imperial  attempt  at  civilization  exhibited  its  unnatural,  and 
consequently  inadequate,  character  in  that  it  allowed  the 
will  of  one  man  to  hamper  and  control  the  development  of 
nations.  Individualism  is  the  exact  antithesis  of  Imperial- 
ism. In  systematizing  the  opposite  principle  of  individual- 
ism, feudalism  did  not  find  the  secret  of  social  organization, 
but,  on  the  contrary,  instead  of  introducing  the  reign  of 
right  principles  between  man  and  man,  it  suffered  ten  thou- 
sand petty  despots  to  substitute  for  absolutism  on  a  magni- 
ficent scale,  local  and  petty,  and,  hence,  more  galling  tyranny. 
It  was,  however,  the  rude  and  desperate  assertion  of  some 
men  to  be  self-determining  factors  in  their  own  social  organ- 
ization against  a  system  which  made  most  men  inert  cogs  in 
the  machinery  of  the  state.  Feudalism  has  been  called  "  the 
revel  of  barbarism."  It  was  rather  the  "  carnival  of  free- 
dom." It  contains  the  prophecy  of  better  things.  A  thou- 
sand fold  better  is  the  extravagance  of  exuberant  life  than 
the  paralysis  of  death. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

THE    CRUSADES 

**rilHE  term  crusades  is  generally  given  to  a  series  of  mili- 
1.  tary  adventures  by  which  the  Western  Christians  at- 
tempted to  conquer  and  hold  Palestine  from  the  Moham- 
medans." In  a  somewhat  broader  sense  they  were  "  expedi- 
tions of  armed  Christians  against  Pagans,  heretics,  and  Mos- 
lems." The  period  of  the  crusades  lasted  almost  exactly 
two  hundred  years  from  the  despairing  appeal  made  by 
Alexius  Comneus,  Emperor  of  the  East,  and  the  preaching  of 
Peter  the  Hermit  which  stirred  the  population  of  southern 
France  into  a  frenzy  of  passion,  in  1095,  to  the  humiliating 
retreat  of  the  seven  surviving  knights  of  the  Hospital  from 
the  garrison  of  Acre,  in  1291. 

This  great  movement  shows  conclusively  that  Christianity 
had  taken  a  leaf  out  of  the  Mohammedan  book  and  turned 
aside  from  the  spiritual  warfare  and  conquests  of  the  first 
three  hundred  years  to  grasp  the  sword  and  enter  into  a 
military  contest  for  the  re-possession  of  the  land  that  had 
been  snatched  from  Christians  by  the  followers  of  the 
Prophet. 

The  crusades  were  divided  according  to  the  field  of  opera- 
tions, into  (a)  Eastern,  and  (b)  Western  Crusades. 

(a)    EASTERN    CRUSADES 

First  Crusade,  1096-1099,  under  Godfrey,  established  the 
Kingdom  of  Jerusalem.     Kingdom  lasts  90  years. 

Second  Crusade,  preached  by  St.  Bernard  and  led  by  Con- 
rad and  Louis  VII,  set  forth  in  1147,  fifty  years  after  the 
First  Crusade.     Disastrous. 

Third  Crusade,  under  Barbarossa,  Philip  of  France  and 
Richard  of  England,  is  defeated  by  Saladin  in  1190.  Bar- 
barossa lost  his  life,  Philip  returned  home  and  Richard  made 

a  truce  with  Saladin. 

190 


Classification  191 

Fourth  Crusade.  The  Latin  fleet  under  Baldwin  achieves 
the  conquest  of  Constantinople  in  1204. 

Fifth  Crusade,  Frederic  II  is  made  King  of  Jerusalem  by 
treaty  in  1227. 

Sixth  Crusade,  1248-1254,  Louis  IX  of  France  made  a 
disastrous  campaign  in  Egypt  and  captured  Damietta,  but 
was  afterwards  taken  prisoner  and  most  of  his  army  died 
of  a  plague. 

Seventh  Crusade.  Louis  IX  made  a  second  attempt  upon 
Egypt  but  dies  in  Tunis,  in  1270. 

(b)     WESTERN    CRUSADES 

(1)  The  Norman  Conquest  of  England,  1066. 

(2)  Spanish  Crusade  in  1086. 

(3)  Albigensian  Crusade  in  1208;  carried  out  by  Simon 
De  Montfort  and  his  men ;  incited  by  Innocent  III. 

(4)  Prussian  Crusade,  1230. 

It  is  foreign  to  the  purpose  of  this  sketch  to  enter  into 
any  extended  discussion  of  the  various  crusades,  but  a  brief 
statement  is  essential  to  the  understanding  of  their  purpose 
and  achievement. 

The  first  crusade  was  the  greatest  and  was  destined  to  ac- 
complish more  than  any  other  that  followed.  The  earliest 
chronicles  represented  it  as  entered  into  by  six  million  peo- 
ple first  and  last,  but  this  is  undoubtedly  vastly  exaggerated. 
Three  hundred  thousand  would  be  nearer  the  truth.  William 
of  Malmsbury,  a  contemporaneous  chronicler,  says  of  the 
motley  throng  which  flocked  to  the  Holy  Land :  "  The  most 
distant  islands  and  savage  countries  were  inspired  with  this 
ardent  passion.  The  Welshman  left  his  hunting,  the  Scotch- 
man his  fellowship  with  vermin,  the  Dane  his  drinking  party, 
the  Norwegian  his  raw  fish.  There  was  no  regard  to  rela- 
tionship ;  patriotism  was  held  in  light  esteem ;  God  alone  was 
placed  before  their  eyes."  The  vanguard  was  a  motley 
throng  of  men,  women  and  children  under  Walter  the  Penni- 
less, Peter  the  Hermit  and  Gottschalk,  a  priest  of  rather 
unsavory  reputation.  These  were  practically  all  destroyed 
either  by  disease  and  famine  upon  the  journey  or  by  the 
sword    of   the    Sultan    David    before    the   walls    of   Nicaea. 


192  The  History  of  Christianity 

After  these  came  the  real  crusaders  under  the  leadership  of 
the  most  noble  of  the  knights  of  France.  The  great  host  of 
men  which  set  out  under  the  banners  of  these  knights,  melted 
away  like  snow  under  a  south  wind,  but  the  remnant  of  them 
captured  Antioch,  on  the  3rd  of  June,  1098,  and  put  the 
garrison  to  the  sword.  The  following  year  they  marched 
to  Jerusalem  and  set  siege  to  the  city  which  surrendered  on 
the  15th  of  July,  1099.  The  inhabitants  were  nearly  all 
massacred  and  Godfrey,  the  noblest  knight  of  them  all,  who 
had  taken  a  leading  part  in  the  wanton  destruction  of  de- 
fenceless life,  was  made  king  of  the  new  Latin  Kingdom  which 
was  created.  Antioch  and  Edessa  were  raised  to  independent 
principalities. 

For  a  time  the  little  Latin  kingdoms,  established  by  the 
soldiers  of  the  first  crusade,  flourished  and  gave  promise  of 
being  worth  the  great  cost  of  their  planting.  But  mutual 
jealousies  and  strife  weakened  them  and  opened  the  way  for 
Moslem  inroads.  Within  fifty  years  they  were  threatened 
with  destruction.  News  of  this  reached  the  West  and 
Bernard  of  Clairvaux  took  up  the  cause  and  preached  a  sec- 
ond crusade  with  such  fiery  zeal  and  eloquence  that  Louis 
VII  of  France  and  Conrad  III,  the  first  of  the  great  Hohen- 
staufen  rulers,  set  out  for  the  Holy  Land  with  two  large 
armies  in  1147.  This  crusade  proved  a  total  failure.  Con- 
rad's army  was  destroyed  by  the  Turks  near  Iconium,  while 
that  of  Louis  was  wrecked  in  the  mountain  passes  beyond 
Laodicea.  Conrad  went  back  with  the  remnant  of  his  troops 
to  Europe  and  the  following  year  Louis  returned  to  France. 

The  third  crusade,  1189-1192,  was  undertaken  by  the  com- 
bined forces  of  Frederic  Barbarossa,  Philip  Augustus,  and 
Richard  the  Lion-Hearted.  Its  purpose  was  to  win  back 
Jerusalem  which  had  been  captured,  in  October  of  1187,  by 
the  brilliant  young  Kurdish  chief  Salah-Eddin  (Saladin). 
This  was  preeminently  the  crusade  of  romance  where  Chris- 
tian and  Moslem  vied  with  each  other  in  all  courtly  graces 
and  knightly  deeds  of  honor.  Neither  Turk  nor  Christian 
won  any  marked  advantage,  but  by  treaty  between  Saladin 
and  Richard,  Christians  were  to  have  the  right  to  make  their 
pilgrimages  untaxed  and  unmolested. 


Eastern  Crusades  193 

The  fourth  crusade  was  launched  in   1202-1204,  at  the 
instigation  of  Pope  Innocent  III,  who  had  been  elevated  to 
the  chair  of  St.  Peter  in  1198.     The  leaders  of  this  crusade 
were  Theobald,  count  of  Champagne,  Louis,  count  of  Blois 
and  Chart  res,  Simon  de  Montfort,  and  Walter  of  Brienne. 
With  these  a  little  later,  went  Geoffrey,  marshal  of  Cham- 
pagne, and  Baldwin,  count  of  Flanders.     The  Venetians,  by 
compact,  furnished  the  vessels   for  carrying  the  troops  to 
the  Holy  Land.      This  crusade  turned  aside  from  its  osten- 
sible purpose  to  attack  and  capture  the  city  of  Constan- 
tinople.    It    surrendered    to    Baldwin,    count    of    Flanders, 
April,  1204-,  and  was  sacked  and  very  largely  destroyed  by 
the    drunken    soldiery.     Baldwin,    count    of    Flanders,    was 
elected  emperor  of  the  East,  in  the  stead  of  Alexios,  the 
Greek.     A    new   patriarch    of    Constantinople    was    chosen, 
Thomas  Morosini,  a  friend  of  Innocent  III,  and  for  a  time 
all  Christendom  was  united  under  the  pope  of  Rome,  but  this 
was  brought  about  "by  the  greatest  crime  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  for  it  was  the  first  step  toward  the  overthrow  of  the 
Greek  and  the  introduction  of  the  Turkish  power  in  Europe." 
The  fifth  crusade  was  undertaken  in  1228,  by  the  emperor 
Frederic  II  without  the  support  of  any  of  the  great  rulers 
of  the  West.      Frederic  was  a  man  of  mar^^elous  ability,  ac- 
quainted with  Moslem   arts   and  philosophy,   and  the   most 
liberal  minded  ruler  of  his  age.     He  attempted  to  accomplish 
by  diplomacy  what  others  had  failed  to  do  by  force,  and  in 
this  he  was  singularly  successful.     Jerusalem,  Jaffa,  Bethle- 
hem, and  Nazareth  were  ceded  by  treaty  to  the  Latins.      The 
Mosque  of  Omar  alone  was  retained  by  the  Moslems.      But 
the  haughty  and  stubborn  old  Pope  Gregory  IX,  who  had 
excommunicated   Frederic   for  his   tardiness   in   setting  out 
upon  his  crusade,  now  cursed  him  for  his  successful  treaty 
and  return.     "  Such  was  the  reward  of  the  man  who  had 
done  more  toward  the  re-establishment  of  the  Latin  Kingdom 
in  Palestine  than  had  been  done  by  the  Lion-Hearted  Richard 
and  who,  it  may  fairly  be  said,  had  done  it  without  shedding 
a  drop  of  blood." 

In  1248,  Louis  IX  of  France  and  Prince  Edward  of  Eng- 
land undertook  to  win  back  to  Christendom  what  had  been 


194  The  History  of  Christianity 

lost  by  the  destructive  inroads  of  the  Korasmians  who  had 
been  driven  from  their  homes  by  the  brutal  hordes  of  Genghis 
Khan,  only  to  ravage  and  lay  waste,  in  their  turn,  Syria  and 
Palestine.  But  feudalism  which  had  made  the  crusades  pos- 
sible had  been  pretty  much  destroyed  in  the  two  hundred 
years  of  constant  struggle  and  the  people  had  grown  weary 
of  bloodshed  and  carnage.  Failure  met  the  crusaders  on 
every  step.  Louis  IX  was  taken  prisoner  at  Damietta  and 
Edward  was  called  home  by  the  death  of  his  father  to  become 
king  of  England.  The  Templars  and  other  military  orders 
wliich  had  done  such  royal  service  in  the  past  were  glad  to 
leave  the  country  and  the  Saracens  who  held  Palestine  at  the 
time  of  the  first  crusade  were  still  masters  at  the  end. 

Having  given  a  very  brief  summary  of  the  main  crusades 
to  the  East  our  attention  must  now  be  turned  to  the  West, 
where  a  series  of  crusades  took  place  in  nature  somewhat 
different  from  those  that  were  aimed  against  the  Moslem  or 
the  Greek. 

The  Norman  Conquest  of  England  may  well  be  called  a 
crusade  although  it  was  carried  on  against  a  people  more 
truly  Christian  than  were  those  who  were  commissioned  by 
Pope  Alexander  II  to  conquer  them.  Hildebrand,  in  fur- 
thering his  vast  theory  of  papal  control,  was  the  inspirer 
of  the  expedition  by  which  William  of  Normandy  hoped  to 
crush  the  free  English  people  and  take  the  throne  from 
Harold  who  had  been  chosen  by  the  free  voice  of  the  Eng- 
lish people.  Under  the  sacred  standard  which  was  sent  to 
him  by  Alexander,  William  gathered  a  motley  host  of  adven- 
turers who  were  promised  entrance  into  heaven  if  they  fell 
in  this  holy  undertaking.  The  pope  had  exacted  a  promise 
from  William  to  hold  England  as  a  fief  of  the  church  in  case 
lie  succeeded  in  his  undertaking.  The  religious  enthusiasm 
which  animated  William's  followers  was  inspired  by  the 
thought  of  the  broad  acres  to  which  they  looked  forward  as 
the  recompense  of  their  toil.  It  is  to  be  noted  that  so  soon 
as  William  felt  himself  secure  upon  his  throne  he  repudiated 
his  promise  to  the  pope  and  held  England  free  from  all 
papal  interference  and  exactions  not  sanctioned  by  himself 
beforehand. 


Western  Crusades  195 

The  Albigensian  crusade,  on  the  face  of  it,  had  a  motive 
quite  different  from  any  heretofore  discussed.  It  might  be 
maintained  that  the  unbelief  of  the  Saracen  was  reason  suffi- 
cient for  snatching  from  him  a  country  which  was  looked 
upon  as  the  inalienable  heritage  of  Christendom.  It  had 
been  the  policy  of  the  church  from  the  third  century  on,  to 
wage  unrestrained  war  against  all  persons  accused  truly  or 
falsely  of  heresy  if  gentler  measures  failed.  To  burn  was  a 
quicker  remedy  than  to  reason.  So  while  Baldwin  and  his 
followers  were  laying  the  foundations  of  the  flimsy  and  short- 
lived Latin  empire  at  Constantinople,  the  great  Innocent  III 
was  preaching  a  crusade  of  extermination  against  the  peace- 
able subjects  of  Count  Raymond  of  Toulouse.  "  All  manner 
of  vile  persons  flocked  to  take  a  part  in  this  crusade  and  the 
Pope  held  before  them  the  inducement  of  rich  plunder.  His- 
tory knows  no  baser  chapter  of  cruelty,  fraud  and  crime 
than  the  crusade  against  the  Albigensians,  yet  Innocent  III 
not  only  sanctioned  it  all,  but  praised  the  acts  of  brutality 
and  license  as  done  for  the  cause  of  Christ.  Thousands  of 
little  children  were  wantonly  murdered;  old  and  defenseless 
men  and  women  were  cut  down  by  brutal  soldiery  under  in- 
structions from  the  papal  legate  to  "  slay  all;  God  will  know 
his  own."  "  Never  in  any  history  were  the  principles  of 
justice,  the  faith  of  treaties,  common  humanity,  so  trampled 
under  foot  as  in  the  Albigensian  crusade." -. 

The  Prussian  crusade  was  undertaken  against  the  bar- 
barian Wends  and  Poles  by  the  Teutonic  Knights,  in  1226, 
at  the  instigation  of  Pope  Honorius  III.  These  barbarians 
had  been  appealed  to  in  vain  by  missionaries  and  had  under- 
taken a  war  of  extermination  against  the  Christians  and 
burnt  or  destroyed  all  churches  and  chapels  that  came  in 
their  way.  A  new  order  was  founded  for  the  protection  of 
Christians  called  the  Order  of  the  Knights  of  Prussia,  but 
nearly  all  of  this  order  perished  shortly  after  in  the  dis- 
astrous battle  of  Strasburg.  In  the  distress  which  followed, 
Conrad,  Duke  of  Masovia,  invited  the  aid  of  the  Teutonic 
Knights  who  came  under  the  leadership  of  their  Grand  Mas- 
ter, Herman  of  Salza.  The  whole  country  was  finally  re- 
duced to  submission,  the  people  being  compelled  to  accept 


196  The  History  of  Christianity 

Christianity  at  the  point  of  the  sword.  German  colonists 
were  brought  in  to  occupy  the  territory  which  had  been  laid 
waste  by  the  war.  Cities  were  rebuilt  and  the  country 
brought  under  cultivation.  Pope  Innocent  IV  divided  the 
territory  into  three  bishoprics  —  Culm,  Pomerania,  and 
Ermeland  (1243).  After  the  close  of  the  crusade  another 
bishopric  was  founded  at  Somland  by  Ottocar,  King  of  Bo- 
hemia. The  German  colonists  intermarried  with  the  Wends 
and  Poles,  thus  forming  the  Prussian  people  of  today. 

It  is  a  common  occurrence  in  considering  some  important 
act  of  an  individual,  for  the  question  to  arise:  Why  did  he 
do  it?  What  motive  did  he  have?  The  question  is  as  diffi- 
cult to  answer  as  it  is  common.  The  motive  which  caused 
the  act  is  usually  hidden  away  within  the  mind  of  the  actor. 
So  the  impelling  causes  of  the  crusades  were  cloaked  in  the 
minds  of  the  multitudes  that  took  part  in  them.  Milman 
has  a  passage  that  is  especially  appropriate  here :  "  When 
all  the  motives  which  stir  the  human  mind  and  heart,  the 
most  impulsive  passion  and  the  profoundest  policy,  conspire 
together,  it  is  impossible  to  discover  which  is  the  dominant 
influence  in  guiding  to  a  certain  cause  of  action." 
*^01d  Testament  religion  made  much  of  sacred  places  and 
these  were  resorted  to  frequently  by  the  Israelites.  Hebron, 
Bethel,  and  Shiloh  became  the  centers  of  Jewish  religion 
until,  in  later  ages,  Jerusalem  took  their  place  and  became 
the  shrine  of  Jewish  religion.  The  law  required  every  one  to 
make  a  journey  to  the  temple  at  Jerusalem  at  least  once  a 
year.  This  was  mainly  for  the  purpose  of  worship  and  in- 
struction, but  to  the  average  Jew  the  place  itself  became  holy 
and  his  journey  little  less  than  a  pilgrimage.  The  early 
Christians  were  usually  all  Jews  and  it  was  but  natural  that 
they  should  have  the  same  feeling  toward  places  made  sacred 
by  the  presence  of  their  Master.  Jesus  himself  did  nothing 
to  encourage  any  such  feeling.  Indeed,  he  gave  emphasis  to 
the  thought  that  no  place  was  especially  sacred.  "  The  hour 
cometh,"  he  said,  "  when  ye  shall  neither  in  this  mountain, 
nor  yet  in  Jerusalem,  worship  the  Father;  .  .  .  when  the 
true  worshippers  shall  worship  the  Father  in  spirit  and  in 
truth." 


Religious  Motives  l-9'7 

But  the  custom  of  their  ancestors  was  stronger  than  a  pre- 
cept of  Jesus,  and  as  Christianity  spread  it  came  continually 
under  the  influence  of  pagan  practices  of  consulting  local 
oracles  and  venerating  places  made  sacred  to  them  by  the 
presence  of  their  gods  and  heroes.     These  forms  became  an 
ever-pressing    temptation    to    the    early    Christian    churcli. 
The  land  trodden  by  the  feet  of  Jesus  became  a  holy  land. 
Here   heaven   was    nearer   than    anywhere    else.     Particular 
places  made  sacred  by  some  association,  act,  or  suffering  of 
the  Lord  Jesus,  were  marked  out  and  became  the  object  of 
special  reverence.     Thus  the  actual  places  where  Jesus  was 
born,  lived,  rose  from  the  grave,  ascended  into  heaven,  be- 
came of  such  religious  importance  that  Christians  began  to 
make  special  journeys  to  these.     This  tendency  on  the  part 
of  the  multitude  was  quickened  into  a  very  passion  for  pil- 
grimage by  the  visit  to  the  Holy  Land  of  Constantine  and  his 
mother  Helena.     Following  the  identification  of  the  cave  in 
which   Jesus  was  born  in  Bethlehem  and  the  sepulcher  at 
Jerusalem,    the    emperor    and   his    mother    erected    splendid 
churches  over  these  spots.     These  now  became  for  Christians 
what  the  sacred  stone  at  Mecca  and  the  tomb  of  the  prophet 
at  INIedina   subsequently  became  to  the  followers  of  Islam. 
After  this  pilgrimages  became  more  and  more  frequent,  the 
pilgrims  having  all  manner  of  honors  bestowed  upon  them 
on  their  journey  and  looked  upon  as  heroes  on  their  return. 
"  From  the  depths  of  the  German  forests,  from  the  banks 
of  the  Seine,  and  the  bleak  shores  of  Britain,  as  well  as  from 
the  cities  of  southern  Europe,  poured  the  incessant  streams 
of  humanity,  to  bathe  in  the  Jordan  where  the  Lord  was  bap- 
tized, or  perchance  to  die  at  the  tomb  which  witnessed  his 
resurrection."   - 

A  systematic  effort  was  put  forth  early  in  the  fourth  cen- 
tury to  facilitate  these  pilgrimages  by  mapping  out  the  best 
course  to  be  taken  across  Europe  and  Asia  Minor.  Along 
these  roads  hospitals  were  established  at  great  cost  by  pious 
and  sympathetic  persons  for  the  free  entertainment  of  pil- 
grims!^  Contributions  for  the  support  of  these  hospitals 
were  sent  in  abundance  by  those  who  remained  at  home  and 
who  thought  that  such  a  work  was  worthy  of  the  special 


198  The  History  of  Christianity 

blessing  of  Heaven.  Pilgrims  were  placed  under  the  special 
protection  of  the  law  and  were  exempted  from  pajang  toll, 
and  commended  by  kings  to  the  hospitality  of  their  subjects. 
Charlemagne  went  so  far  in  his  favor  as  to  command  his 
subjects  throughout  his  vast  empire  to  supply  pilgrims  at 
least  with  lodging,  fire,  and  water.  A  splendid  hospital  was 
built  at  Jerusalem  out  of  money  contributed  by  Gregory  the 
Great.  So  the  pilgrim  set  forth  in  every  way  a  privileged 
character,  with  the  blessings  and  prayers  of  his  kindred  or 
the  community  among  whom  he  lived.  The  simple  accouter- 
ments  which  announced  his  pui'pose  and  which  served  his 
needs  were  the  staff,  the  wallet,  and  the  scallop-shell.  •  While 
pilgrimages  were  at  first  undertaken  in  order  to  gaze  upon 
the  places  made  sacred  by  the  presence  of  the  Lord  and  in 
this  manner  to  quicken  the  zeal  and  religious  fervor  of  the 
devout,  as  time  went  on  they  were  looked  upon  as  an  expia- 
tion for  sin.  Bathing  in  the  Jordan  became  a  second  bap- 
tism and  washed  away  all  the  sins  of  life  and  assured  a  tri- 
umphant entrance  into  heaven.  The  shirt  which  the  pilgrim 
wore  when  he  entered  Jerusalem  was  carefully  laid  away  to 
be  used  as  a  winding  sheet  which,  like  the  carpet  of  Solomon, 
gave  the  power  of  transporting  him  to  the  realms  of  the 
blessed.  But  the  beholding  of  Jerusalem  and  the  assurance 
of  eternal  salvation  for  the  pilgrim  was  not  the  only  reward. 
He  found  there  an  emporium  of  relics  and  returned  home 
bearing  a  splinter  from  the  true  cross  or  some  other  memorial 
of  the  Savior.  The  demand  for  relics  grew  to  enormous 
proportions  and  a  regular  trade  grew  up  in  these,  but  the 
supply  ever  kept  pace  with  the  demand.  The  story  goes 
that  Helena,  the  mother  of  Constantine,  when  visiting  Jeru- 
salem miraculously  discovered  the  time  cross  buried  with  two 
others  upon  the  site  of  the  crucifixion.  The  tablet  which 
Pilate  had  attached  to  it  had  fallen  off  and  it  was  impos- 
sible to  tell  which  of  the  three  was  the  one  upon  which  Jesus 
w^as  crucified.  Recourse  was  had  to  miracle.  Each  cross, 
in  turn,  was  laid  upon  a  dead  woman.  The  first  two  pro- 
duced no  effect,  but  when  the  third  was  placed  upon  her, 
the  woman  immediately  arose  from  the  dead.  The  marvel 
was  unhesitatingly  accepted  by  the  people.     The  cross  was 


Passion  for  Pilgrimages  199 

carried  off  by  Chosroes,  in  611,  but  was  restored  to  the 
Greek  emperor,  after  a  ten  years'  war,  and  re-erected  upon 
the  assumed  site  of  Calvary.  Like  Mark  Twain's  Charter 
Oak,  this  cross  has  furnished  wood  enough  to  build  a  cit}-. 

For  more  than  two  hundred  years  the  tide  of  pilgrimage 
flowed  on  without  interruption.  Then  came  the  conquest 
of  Jerusalem  by  Chosroes  II,  the  king  of  Persia,  in  611,  and 
a  brief  check  upon  the  influx  of  Christians  until  Heraclius 
overthrew  the  fire-worshippers  and  regained  the  Christian 
emblem,  in  628. 

Scarce  eight  years  passed  after  the  completion  of  the  war 
with  Persia  and  the  return  of  the  true  cross,  when  the  Mo- 
hammedan forces  penetrated  the  Greek  provinces,  captured 
Damascus,  and  advanced  and  laid  siege  to  the  Holy  City. 
After  a  siege  of  less  than  four  months  the  city  capitulated 
and  received  the  terms  offered  by  Omar,  the  second  Khalif 
after  Mohammed.  For  the  terms  granted  to  the  Christians 
see  the  chapter  on  Mohammed  and  his  Teachings  (Chapter 
XXV).  This  capture  of  the  Holy  City  was  looked  upon  by 
the  Mohammedans  as  of  very  great  importance,  as  next  to 
Mecca  and  Medina,  it  was  held  in  veneration  by  the  Arabs. 
They  claimed  Abraham  as  their  ancestor  and  they  revered  the 
Jewish  prophets  and  venerated  Jesus  as  the  man  of  supreme 
sanctity  but  not  divine.  The  Christians  were  allowed  to 
continue  their  worship  as  usual,  but  with  some  restrictions. 
They  saw  the  Mosque  of  Omar  rise  upon  the  site  of  the 
Temple  of  Jerusalem  and  the  cross  come  down  from  their 
own  churches,  but  the  Mohammedans  themselves  believed  in 
pilgrimages  to  sacred  places  and,  therefore,  did  not  inter- 
fere with  the  Christian  pilgrims.  So  the  stream  of  pilgrims 
soon  reached  its  wonted  size  and  Mohammedan  Jerusalem 
was  to  them  still  a  Holy  City. 

For  nearly  four  hundred  years  after  the  submission  of  the 
Greek  patriarch  to  Omar,  the  West  had  sent  forth  its  troops 
of  pilgrims  without  let  or  hindrance.  They  underwent  noth- 
ing which  could  excite  anger  or  raise  the  indignation  of  the 
Christians.  With  the  pilgrims  went  also  numerous  mendi- 
cants who  found  a  source  of  great  profit  in  the  traffic  which 
had  sprung  up  not  only  in  relics  but  in  spices,  silks,  gems. 


wo  The  History  of  Christianity 

and  laces,  and  other  products  of  the  far  East.  In  the  mean- 
time ignorance  and  superstition  kept  alive  the  wonders  of  the 
Holy  Land.  Bishop  Arculf  told  of  having  seen  the  three 
Tabernacles  still  standing  upon  the  Mount  of  Transfigura- 
tion. Bernard  of  Brittany  as  an  eye-witness  described  the 
angel  who  came  from  heaven  each  Easter  morn  to  light  the 
lamp  above  the  Holy  Sepulcher.  Innumerable  stories  only  a 
little  less  picturesque  than  the  above  were  told  and  unques- 
tioningly  accepted  by  the  credulity  of  the  people. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  ninth  century  Charlemagne  took 
upon  himself  the  protection  of  Christians  throughout  the 
world.  He  gave  large  sums  of  money  to  assist  in  the  build- 
ing and  protection  of  churches  in  Syria,  and  he  entered  into 
treaties  with  Mohammedan  rulers  for  the  security  of  the 
lives  and  property  of  Christians,  The  amicable  relations  be- 
tween himself  and  Haroun-al-Raschid  (the  wise)  brought  to 
Charlemagne  that  which  he  considered  the  most  precious  of 
all  his  gifts,  the  keys  of  the  holy  sepulcher,  and  an  assurance 
of  a  further  extension  of  privileges  to  pilgrims. 

In  the  year  1000  there  was  an  almost  universal  belief 
among  Christians  of  the  quick-coming  end  of  the  world. 
This  brought  with  it  a  strong  religious  movement  which 
came  about  from  the  expectation  of  the  coming  judgment 
of  the  Lord.  Pilgrimages  to  the  Holy  Land  greatly  in- 
creased in  numbers.  Men  of  all  classes  crowded  to  Jerusalem 
that  they  might  be  present  at  the  great  assize  when  the 
Lord  set  up  his  judgment  seat  in  the  valley  of  Jehoshaphat. 
More  people  than  Otto  HI  were  disappointed  when  the  year 
1000  went  by  without  bringing  with  it  the  end  of  all  things. 
A  brief  revival  of  persecution  under  Hakim,  the  fanatic  Sul- 
tan of  Egypt,  resulted  in  the  destruction  of  the  Church  of  the 
Holy  Sepulcher  and  many  other  Christian  buildings  In, 
Jerusalem;  thousands  of  Christians  were  slain  and  pilgrims 
were  for  a  time  halted  and  refused  admittance  to  the  city. 
After  a  brief  period,  however,  they  were  again  permitted  to 
resume  their  wonted  devotions  within  the  walls  of  the  H0I3' 
City,  but  were  required  to  pay  a  small  toll  before  passing 
the  gates.  Again  pilgrims  came  and  went  without  inter- 
ruption for  more  than  a  generation  when  a  new  danger  arose. 


Agitation  hy  Urban  II  201 

The  easy  tolerations  granted  to  Christians  by  the  polished 
Mohammedan  Khalifs  was  destroyed  by  the  savage  and  war- 
like Turks.  This  mongrel  race  had  overthrown  the  cultured 
Mohammedan  rulers  of  the  East  and  taken  over  the  govern- 
ment. They  had  been  converted  to  Mohammedanism  but 
had  rejected  everything  in  this  religion  which  tended  to  a 
higher  civilization,  while  they  eagerly  embraced  all  that  was 
barbarous  and  aggressive.  Their  ruler,  Toucush,  became 
master  of  Jerusalem  in  1076,  and  quickly  inaugurated  a 
system  of  extortion  and  robbery  in  the  place  of  the  previous 
easy-going  tolerance.  Pilgrims  were  insulted  and  holy 
places  violated.  The  Greek  patriarch  was  thrown  into 
prison  and  held  for  a  large  ransom.  But  these  outrages, 
and  the  tyranny  of  the  rulers  of  Jerusalem  could  not  stop 
or  even  seriously  check  the  unexhausted  passion  for  pilgrim- 
ages. Added  danger  only  seemed  to  fan  the  flame  and  pil- 
grims pushed  on  in  holy  zeal  ready  for  wounds  and  death  at 
the  hands  of  the  unbelievers.   - 

At  length  the  persecution  of  pilgrims  and  the  desecration 
of  the  holy  places  found  a  voice.  Throughout  the  length  and 
breadth  of  Christendom  a  fierce  indignation  was  stirring  the 
hearts  of  men,  and  guidance  and  a  plan  were  only  lacking 
to  carry  this  storm  of  hatred  and  thirst  for  revenge  against 
the  infidel.  These  elements  were  now  furnished  by  the  pope. 
Urban  II,  who  saw  that  the  time  was  ripe  for  the  crusade 
against  the  Moslem  and  the  winning  of  the  Holy  Land  for 
Christianity  which  Sylvester  II  and  Gregory  VII  had  in  vain 
advocated.  Urban  summoned  a  council  at  Clermont  in  the 
territories  of  the  count  of  Auvergne,  in  1095,  and  set  out 
from  his  old  home  in  the  monastery  of  Clugny,  in  order  to  be 
present  at  the  meeting.  When  he  arrived  at  the  meeting- 
place  he  found  the  city  full  to  overflowing  of  attendants  and 
thousands  of  tents  pitched  outside  the  walls  for  those  who 
could  find  no  resting-place  within.  The  council  sat  for  a 
period  of  eight  days,  regulating  the  enterprise  which  had 
been  little  more  than  mentioned  at  the  previous  council  of 
Piacenza.  It  was  now  up  to  Urban  to  set  in  motion  those 
invasions  of  the  East  which  form  so  striking  a  feature  of  the 
history  of  the  Middle  Age.     Before  he  permitted  the  council 


202  The  History  of  Christianity 

to  adjourn  he  delivered  an  address  before  the  assembled 
multitude  which  for  eloquence,  force,  and  fire  has  been  sel- 
dom equalled,  never  surpassed.  Urban  ascended  a  lofty  scaf- 
.fold  erected  for  the  purpose  and  began  his  address:  *"  You 
must  show  the  strength  of  your  righteousness  in  a  precious 
work  which  is  not  less  your  concern  than  the  Lord's.  For 
it  behoves  you  to  hasten  to  carry  to  your  brethren  dwelling 
in  the  East  the  aid  so  often  promised  and  so  urgently  needed. 
For  the  Turks  and  the  Arabs  have  attacked  them,  as  many 
of  you  know,  and  have  advanced  into  the  territory  of  Rou- 
mania  as  far  as  that  port  of  the  Mediterranean  which  is 
called  the  Arm  of  St.  George  (the  Hellespont)  ;  and,  having 
penetrated  farther  and  farther  into  the  country  of  those 
Christians,  have  already  seven  times  conquered  them  in  bat- 
tle, have  killed  and  captured  many,  have  destroyed  the 
churches  and  desolated  the  kingdom.  If  you  permit  them  to 
remain  for  a  time  unmolested  they  will  extend  their  sway 
more  widely  over  many  faithful  servants  of  the  Lord. 

"  Wherefore,  I  pray  and  exhort,  nay,  not  I,  but  the  Lord 
prays  and  exhorts  you,  as  heralds  of  Christ,  at  all  times  to 
urge  men  of  all  ranks,  peasants  and  knights,  the  poor  equally 
with  the  rich,  to  hasten  to  exterminate  this  vile  race  from  the 
land  ruled  by  our  brethren,  and  to  bear  timely  aid  to  the 
worshippers  of  Christ.  I  speak  to  those  who  are  present,  I 
shall  proclaim  it  to  the  absent,  but  it  is  Christ  who  commands. 
The  wealth  of  your  enemies  shall  be  yours ;  ye  shall  plunder 
their  treasures.  Ye  serve  a  commander  who  will  not  permit 
his  soldiers  to  want  bread,  or  a  just  reward  for  their  services. 
Moreover,  if  those  who  set  out  thither  lose  their  lives  on  the 
journe}^,  by  land  or  sea,  or  in  fighting  against  the  heathen, 
their  sins  shall  be  remitted  in  that  hour ;  this  I  grant  through 
the  power  of  God  vested  in  me."  — 

It  is  stated  that  Urban  was  scarcely  able  to  finish  his 
address  by  reason  of  the  interruptions ;  murmurs  of  grief 
and  indignation.  When  he  had  closed  a  great  shout  went 
up :  "  It  is  the  will  of  God !  It  is  the  will  of  God  !  "  The 
assembly  voted  itself  the  army  of  God.  But  the  pope  was 
not  satisfied.  He  ordered  all  of  the  bishops  to  preach  the 
crusade  in  every  discourse. 


Peter  the  Hermit  203 

Among  those  who  helped  mightily  in  fanning  the  popular 
enthusiasm  was  Peter,  a  little  monk  of  Amiens,  better  known 
as  Peter  the  Hermit,  who  went  through  southern  France 
preaching  the  crusade  with  tremendous  zeal.  He  has  been 
represented  generally  as  the  originator  of  the  first  crusade 
and  the  one  who  won  over  Urban  to  undertake  the  task. 
But  this  idea  has  been  completely  refuted  by  a  careful  study 
of  the  sources. 

If  now,  we  turn  aside  from  the  religious  motives  which  im- 
pelled the  crusades,  we  will  still  be  able  to  find  other  motives, 
as  mankind  can  scarcely  be  said  ever  to  have  acted  wholly 
from  religious  impulse.  Not  long  preceding  the  beginning 
of  the  crusades  Europe  had  been  overrun  by  swarms  of  Ger- 
man barbarians.  Visigoths,  Ostrogoths,  Vandals,  Burgun- 
dians,  Franks,  and  Anglo-Saxons  had  laid  waste  the  Western 
Roman  empire  and  destroyed  the  magnificent  civilization 
built  up  by  more  than  a  thousand  years  of  Roman  rule. 
Cities  were  destroyed  and  the  art  of  building  them  lost ; 
Roman  agriculture,  which  has  scarcely  been  surpassed  in  our 
day,  was  ruined  and  the  fields  left  to  grow  up  in  brambles  and 
forests ;  sheep  and  cattle  were  eaten  up,  or  wantonly  de- 
stroyed by  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of  untamed  men  that 
wandered  over  the  fertile  plains  of  Gaul  and  Italy,  and  none 
raised  to  take  their  places.  When  the  Anglo-Saxons  were 
through  with  the  conquest  of  Britain,  that  country  was  little 
less  than  a  howling  wilderness  and  waited  for  more  than  a 
hundred  years  for  monks  to  teach  the  Saxon  warrior  the  art 
of  agriculture  and  stock-raising.  The  result  of  all  this  was 
the  failure  of  the  food  supply  and  consequent  want  and 
poverty.  There  were  too  many  men  engaged  in  destruction 
and  not  enough  men  engaged  in  the  arts  of  peace-productive 
industries.  This  made  the  common  people  restless  and  eager 
for  any  change.  Again,  the  ruling  princes  of  Germany, 
France  and  England  were  continually  embarrassed  by  court 
intrigues  and  the  turbulent  and  independent  spirit  of  the 
greater  feudal  nobility.  Some  of  these  princes  were  far- 
sighted  enough  to  see  that  their  ovm  power  would  be  in- 
creased either  by  conquest  abroad  or  by  the  absence  on  a 
crusade  of  the  nobles  already  grown  too  powerful.     Conrad 


204  The  History  of  Christianity 

III  of  Germany  and  Louis  VII  of  France  may  be  cited  as  ex- 
amples of  this  kind  of  ambitious  motive.  Then  there  was 
the  great  feudal  aristocracy  which  made  the  back-bone  of 
nearly  every  crusade.  To  this  body  of  constitutional  war- 
riors there  was  furnished  the  fierce  pastime  of  war  on  a  grand 
scale  instead  of  the  petty  quarrels  with  neighboring  chief- 
tains. War  formed  the  main  occupation,  I  might  say  the 
only  occupation,  of  these  men ;  this  was  the  only  delight  of 
their  lives,  and  now  the  opportunity  had  come  to  indulge 
their  ungoverned  passions  under  the  garb  of  religion.  There 
was  also  the  prospect  of  vast  and  permanent  conquest.  If 
the  noble  left  behind  a  fair  domain,  possibly  encumbered  by 
mortgage  by  reason  of  his  wild  living,  he  could  look  forward 
with  the  hope  of  winning  something  far  greater.  To  the 
non-feudal  population  and  to  the  serfs  who  accompanied 
their  lords  to  the  East  there  was  held  out  the  offer  of  a 
method  of  wiping  out  all  guilt  from  their  souls  without  chang- 
ing their  character  or  disposition.  It  was  to  them  a  new 
and  rather  taking  way  of  salvation.  The  broad  road  which 
they  had  hitherto  been  following,  "  the  primrose  path  to  the 
everlasting  bonfire,"  now  suddenly  became  a  narrow  and 
rugged  path  to  heaven.  Their  debts  were  forgiven  and  their 
dependents  looked  after  by  the  church. 

To  Cardinal  Baronius,  the  historian  of  the  church  down  to 
the  year  1198,  belongs  the  honor  of  designating  the  period 
then  ceasing  as  that  of  the  Dark  Ages.  The  term  has  lived 
on  because  of  its  fitness.  It  was,  indeed,  but  a  few  genera- 
tions since  the  people  that  had  inherited  Roman  civilization 
had  been  pretty  much  exterminated  and  the  lands,  as  has 
been  previously  stated,  reverted  to  forest  and  marsh.  Huns 
held  Italy  from  900  to  930 ;  Rollo  the  Dane  overran  and  con- 
quered Normandy  in  911,  and  in  1029  the  Normans  possessed 
themselves  of  the  south  of  Italy  and  the  greater  part  of  the 
island  of  Sicily.  This  was,  indeed,  an  age  of  gross  ignor- 
ance. Culture  was  not  entirely  extinct  as  there  were  some 
men  whose  genius  and  virtues  would  have  adorned  any  age. 
Such  a  man  was  Gerbert,  Pope  Sylvester  II,  who  died  in  1003, 
and  whose  learning  was  the  wonder  of  the  age.  The  early 
schoolmen,  t6o,  Lanfranc,  Anselm,  and  Berengar,  may  be 


General  Poverty  205 

mentioned  as  great  thinkers  and  logicians,  and  Hildebrand 
has  taken  a  place  among  the  world's  greatest  men.  But  the 
intellectuality  of  this  period  was  wholly  concerned  with  theo- 
logical and  religious  subjects.  Of  literature  there  was  none, 
as  that  of  Rome  and  Greece  had  been  lost  or  destroyed  and 
nothing  new  had  as  yet  been  produced.  The  few  manu- 
scripts that  existed  were  the  property  of  monasteries  or  of 
the  more  wealthy  nobility,  who  kept  them  as  a  sort  of  orna- 
mental furniture  rather  than  any  particular  use.  Very  few 
of  the  nobility  could  read  but  signed  with  a  (X)  cross  when 
their  names  were  necessary  for  a  deed  or  treaty.  The  priests 
committed  to  memory  the  Latin  service,  but  could  not  trans- 
late it,  reciting  with  the  tongues  of  parrots.  They  knew  ab- 
solutely nothing  of  the  magnificent  civilization  which  la}'  back 
of  them.  Thought  was  discouraged  and  looked  upon  with 
suspicion  as  heresy.  Roger  Bacon,  who  lived  at  the  close  of 
the  crusading  period,  was  imprisoned  for  fourteen  years  be- 
cause he  had  the  boldness  to  suggest  a  rational  method  of 
viewing  the  world.  The  industrial  arts  were  lost  or  were 
absolutely  neglected  after  the  conquest  of  the  barbarians 
had  swept  away  the  Roman  civilization  and  centuries  went 
by  without  any  attempt  to  revive  them. 

The  life  of  the  conmion  people  was  sordid  and  pitiful  be- 
yond expression.  The  vast  majority  of  them  lived  in  the 
country  in  a  condition  of  complete  isolation  from  their 
fellows.  They  had  a  few  stunted  and  deformed  cattle ;  they 
plowed  their  little  fields  with  a  sharpened  stick,  drawn  by  a 
cow  and  a  woman  yoked  together,  and  trusted  to  most  primi- 
tive methods  in  hunting  the  wild  game  and  fishing  the  streams 
for  food  sufficient  to  support  their  families.  If  serfs,  they 
lived  huddled  together  in  hamlets  at  the  foot  of  some  hill, 
crowned  by  the  castle  of  their  lord  who  gave  them  some  pro- 
tection in  return  for  service.  Their  homes  were  dreary 
hovels,  roofed  with  straw,  without  windows  and  without  floor- 
ing other  than  clay  and  cow  manure  pounded  together,  and 
overrun  with  vermin.  The  death  rate  from  preventable  dis- 
eases was  appalling,  especially  among  children. 

Dense  ignorance  bred  the  wildest  and  most  unbelievable 
superstition.     The   noises   of  the  night   were   wrought  into 


206  The  History  of  Christianity 

voices  of  ghosts  and  the  winds  that  rustled  the  leaves  of  the 
forest  or  moaned  through  the  branches  of  the  winter-strij^ped 
trees,  was  the  groaning  of  the  lost  souls  of  sinners.  The 
deeds  of  demons  were  mixed  with  those  of  men  and  were  re- 
corded by  the  chroniclers  of  the  age  with  equal  gravity  and 
received  with  unbounded  faith.  A  falling  star  was  a  portent 
of  calamity,  and  the  appearance  of  a  comet  was  the  dread 
harbinger  of  war. 

Upon  the  preaching  of  Urban  and  the  decision  of  the  coun- 
cil of  Clermont  to  undertake  a  crusade,  the  masses  broke 
into  the  wildest  enthusiasm,  and  without  taking  any  thought 
touching  equipment,  or  provision  for  the  journey,  and  in 
absolute  ignorance  of  the  distance  to  be  travelled  and  the 
dangers  and  hardships  to  be  met  and  subdued,  they  secured 
the  quandam  leadership  of  the  discredited  knight,  Walter 
the  Penniless,  and  the  hairbrained  Peter  the  Hermit,  and  set 
out  without  awaiting  the  more  orderly  army  of  knights. 
They  paid  with  their  lives  for  their  foolishness. 

While  the  regular  army  of  knights  and  their  retainers  was 
not  guilty  of  the  excesses,  crimes,  and  foolishness  that  the 
rabbles  of  Walter  and  Peter  the  Hermit  engaged  in,  still 
thousands  of  them  perished  on  the  way  to  the  East,  and 
only  a  handful  of  the  host  which  set  out  stood  before  the 
walls  of  Antioch  and  assisted  in  the  siege  of  that  city.  The 
crusading  forces  had  starved  on  the  long  journey  they  had 
made  and  now  they  were  unable  to  restrain  themselves  when 
they  beheld  the  wide  valleys  and  the  fruitful  fields  already 
ripe  for  the  harvest  and  the  vintage.  The  cattle,  the  com 
and  the  wine,  were  wasted  with  no  thought  of  the  morrow  and 
as  the  siege  progressed  the  Christians  were  threatened  with 
famine.  The  siege  went  on  with  varying  success  until  June, 
1098,  when  the  city  was  betrayed  to  Bohemond  and  more  than 
10,000  Turks  were  put  to  the  sword,  only  a  remnant  shutting 
themselves  up  in  the  citadel  and  preparing  to  defend  them- 
selves to  the  last.  Again  the  Christians  turned  from  famine 
to  feasting  and  gave  themselves  up  to  the  wildest  dissipation 
and  riot.  Food  which  might  have  lasted  for  months  was 
wasted  in  a  week.  And  then  the  news  reached  them  that  the 
Persian  army  was  almost  at  the  gates.     The  crusaders  now 


Barbarities  in  Jerusalem  207 

massed  in  the  city  with  no  provisions  for  a  siege,  found  them- 
selves beset  in  the  rear  by  the  Turks  within  the  citadel,  and 
from  without  by  a  well-equipped  Persian  army.  At  the  last 
extremity  superstition  came  to  their  aid  and  a  priest  assured 
the  soldiers  that  he  had  seen  in  a  vision  the  Savior  himself, 
attended  by  his  Virgin  ^Mother,  and  the  Prince  of  the  Apostles 
and  .  .  .  had  received  a  distinct  assurance  that  in  five  days 
they  should  have  the  aid  they  needed.  Again  the  crusaders 
were  filled  with  hope  and  Peter  Barthelmy,  chaplain  to  Ray- 
mond of  Toulouse,  seized  the  opportunity  of  recounting  a 
vision  wliich  had  come  to  him.  "  St.  Andrew  had  appeared 
and  revealed  the  fact  that  in  the  Church  of  St.  Peter  lay 
hidden  the  steel  head  of  the  spear  which  had  pierced  the  side 
of  the  Redeemer  as  he  hung  upon  the  cross.  This  Holy 
Lance  should  win  them  victory  over  all  their  enemies."  Two 
days  were  spent  in  devotion,  after  which  they  were  to  search 
for  the  long-lost  weapon.  Upon  the  third  day  the  workmen 
began  to  dig  and  labored  through  the  hours  without  success. 
*'  When  night  approached  the  priest,  bare-footed  and  with  a 
single  garment  went  down  into  the  pit  which  had  been  made 
by  the  laborers ;  for  a  time  the  strokes  of  his  spade  re- 
sounded, and  then  the  sacred  relic  was  found,  carefully 
wrapped  in  a  veil  of  silk  and  gold."  The  Holy  Lance  was 
borne  by  the  papal  legate  Adhemar  of  Puy,  and  the  forces, 
thus  inspired,  fought  with  such  fierceness  that  the  enemy 
finally  withdrew  in  confusion.  Superstition  can  sometimes 
win  battles. 

The  crusaders  passed  on  from  Antioch  to  Jerusalem  and 
set  siege  to  the  city  which  was  taken  by  storm  in  July,  1099. 
And  now  was  enacted  such  a  scene  of  carnage  as  has  rarely 
been  seen  in  the  pages  of  history.  Says  Dean  Milman: 
*'  No  barbarian,  no  infidel,  no  Saracen,  perpetuated  such 
wanton  and  cold-blooded  atrocities  of  cruelty  as  the  wearers 
of  the  Cross  of  Christ  (who,  it  is  said,  had  fallen  on  their 
l<nees  and  burst  into  a  pious  hymn  at  the  first  ^^ew  of  the 
Holy  City),  on  the  capture  of  that  city.  Murder  was  mercy, 
rape  tenderness,  simple  plunder,  the  mere  assertion  of  the 
conqueror's  right.  Children  were  seized  by  their  legs,  some 
of  them  plucked   from  their  mothers'  breasts   and  dashed 


208  The  History  of  Christianity 

against  the  walls,  or  whirled  from  the  battlements.  Others 
were  obliged  to  leap  from  the  walls ;  some  tortured,  roasted 
by  slow  fires.  They  ripped  up  prisoners  to  see  if  they  had 
swallowed  gold.  Of  70,000  Saracens  there  were  not  left 
enough  to  bury  the  dead. 

"  Never  before  or  since  was  there  ever  such  exalted  faith 
combined  with  such  grotesque  superstition,  such  splendid 
self-sacrifice  mingled  with  cruel  and  unrestrained  selfishness, 
such  holy  purpose  with  its  wings  entangled,  torn,  and  be- 
smeared in  vicious  environments." 

What  was  the  general  effect  of  the  great  crusade  move- 
ment.'^ This  question  is  rather  difficult  to  answer  and  has 
been  looked  upon  in  various  ways  by  different  historians. 
There  was,  no  doubt,  a  mixture  of  good  and  evil  in  them, 
but  the  line  of  cleavage  between  these  is  difficult  to  locate. 
The  results  may  be  classified  under  three  heads:  (a)  Intel- 
lectual, (b)  Political,  and  (c)  Ecclesiastical. 

We  have  shown  something  of  the  condition  of  Europe  at 
the  inauguration  of  the  crusades  in  the  eleventh  century. 
Comparing  this  with  what  could  be  seen  in  the  thirteenth 
century  when  the  force  of  the  movement  was  spent  and  mili- 
tant faith  had  given  up  the  struggle  for  the  Holy  Land,  an 
entirely  new  picture  presents  itself.  In  every  line  of  human 
endeavor  change  is  seen  to  a  remarkable  degree.  Intellectu- 
ality had  increased  and  asserted  its  right  to  dominate  mere 
brute  force.  The  association  of  the  crusaders  from  the 
West,  where  ever3'thing  was  as  yet  raw  and  undeveloped, 
with  Saracens  and  Greeks  who  had  for  centuries  enjoyed 
both  wealth  and  culture,  necessarily  broadened  their  minds 
and  taught  them  many  things  far  in  advance  of  what  they 
knew  at  home.  They  learned  something  of  the  science  of 
government  from  the  Moslem  and  the  Greek ;  unity  of  na- 
tional purpose  and  action.  Of  especial  value  was  the  knowl- 
edge attained  in  matters  of  municipalities,  for  they  were  com- 
pelled to  note  that  Cairo  and  Damascus  were  better  governed 
in  every  way  than  were  Paris  and  London. 

Commerce  also  received  an  immense  impulse  in  the  crusades 
and  trading  vessels  spread  their  sails  upon  all  seas.  For 
two  hiindred  years  a  line  of  ships  plied  to  and  fro  between 


Extended  Boundaries  of  Christendom  209 

the  ports  of  the  eastern  and  western  ^lediterranean,  carry- 
ing suppHes  to  the  soldiers.     An  English  fleet  transported 
the    army    of    Richard   I    along   the   Atlantic    coast.     Men 
learned  how  to  load  ships  with  the  utmost  economy  of  space 
and,  by  tacking,  to  sail  them  in  all  winds.     Roads  were  built 
especially  throughout  southern  France  and  Italy,  which  con- 
verged to  the  port  of  departure  from  the  surrounding  coun- 
try.    Upon  these  produce  of  all  kinds  was  conveyed  for  ship- 
ment and  a  great  impulse  was  given  to  productive  industries. 
This  fostered  the  commercial  habit  and  skill  which  were  util- 
ized in  times  of  yeace.     Leagues  of  merchants  were  formed 
for   self-protection   against   pirates    and  high-way    robbers. 
Maritime  laws  were  codified  and  generally  enforced  upon  the 
Mediterranean.     Bills  of  exchange,  borrowed  from  the  usage 
of  the  Jews,  were  in  vogue  early  in  the  thirteenth  century. 
This  growth  in  trade  increased  the  wealth  of  the  common 
people  and  introduced  new  articles  of  food  and  dress,  thus 
raising  the  scale  of  living  everywhere.     To  supply  these  new 
demands  manufacturing  grew  apace  and  invention  was  stimu- 
lated.    Domestic  arts  took  their  place  in  the  foremost  line 
of  the  new  civilization  which  was  dawning. 

Perhaps  the  greatest  changes  brought  about  by  the  cru- 
sades were  political.  These  touched  the  whole  life  of  Eu- 
rope. Every  rank  and  class  of  society  were  profoundly  in- 
fluenced. 

By  the  overthrow  of  the  pagan  Wends  and  Poles  ot  Prus- 
sia, and  their  Christianization  by  the  sword  a  large  territory 
was  added  to  Christendom  and  a  new  and  dangerous  element 
injected  into  European  politics. 

The  Albigensian  and  Spanish  Crusades  helped  to  unity 
France  and  Spain.  The  Albigensian  crusade  destroyed  the 
old  population  of  southern  France  that  had  been  independent 
in  religion  and  politics  from  the  time  of  Clovis,  and  filled  the 
vacant  places  with  a  population  from  the  great  feudatories 
of  the  North  of  France.  Bv  the  end  of  the  reign  of  St. 
Louis,  this  entire  territory,  with  its  mixed  feudal  popula- 
tion, had  fallen  to  the  crown  and  helped  on  the  unity  of 
France  by  becoming  a  part  of  the  royal  domain.  Ihe 
Spanish   crusade,   by   two    hundred   years    of  warfare,   had 


210  The  History  of  Christianity 

gradually  forced  the  Moors  from  Aragon,  Castile,  and  Leon, 
into  the  southern  portion  of  the  peninsula  and  had  re-estab- 
lished the  Catholic  religion  in  those  provinces.  This  war 
of  conquest  was  to  continue  until  the  Moors  were  finally 
driven  from  Granada  and  the  whole  Spanish  peninsula  uni- 
fied under  Ferdinand  and  Isabella. 

In  the  crusades  royalty  was  above  all  the  gainer.  At  first 
the  kings  stayed  at  home  and,  as  a  result,  gained  by  not  ex- 
hausting what  power  they  had  in  rivalry  with  vassals  that 
were  stronger  than  themselves.  For  example,  William  Rufus 
went  not  upon  a  crusade  but  remained  at  home  and  gave  his 
rapacious  nobles  aid,  strengthening  his  power.  He  lent 
money  to  his  brother  Robert  to  aid  him  to  take  the  cross, 
and  took  for  security  a  mortgage  on  Normandy  which 
Robert  was  never  able  to  pay.  When  the  kings  had  become 
more  powerful  as  they  had  by  the  time  of  the  second  cru- 
sade, they  placed  themselves  before  the  world  as  the  great 
heads  and  leaders  of  the  movement.  By  this  method  they 
taught  the  people  to  regard  them  with  respect  as  the  true 
lords  and  rulers  of  mankind.  The  French  people  supplied 
the  great  majority  of  the  warriors  and  their  sovereigns  were 
foremost  in  leading  and  supporting  the  crusades.  This  lead- 
ership in  the  field  quite  naturally  strengthened  the  royal 
power  and  built  up  the  French  throne.  The  ambitious  lords 
who  followed  the  king  abroad  learned  to  yield  obedience  and 
were  little  inclined  to  dispute  his  authority  at  home.  During 
the  reign  of  Hugh  Capet  royal  authority  was  limited  to  the 
territory  immediately  surrounding  Paris.  During  the  reign 
of  Louis  IX,  which  saw  the  close  of  the  crusades,  there  were 
ceded  to  the  crown,  from  various  causes,  by  their  feudal  lords, 
the  greater  part  of  Toulouse,  Chartres,  Blois,  Sancerre, 
Macon,  Perche,  Aries,  Farcalquier,  Foix,  and  Cahor.  Eng- 
land at  the  same  time  surrendered  its  claim  to  Normandy, 
Anjou,  Mainz,  Touraine,  Poitou,  and  northern  Saintonge,  so 
that  the  territory  of  the  crown  was  now  pretty  much  the  same 
as  modem  France.  The  old-time  feudal  courts  now  fell 
away  and  an  appeal  lay  from  them  to  the  French  king.  In 
Germany  the  case  was  different.  The  continuous  quarrel  be- 
tween the  papacy  and  the  empire  weakened  the  imperial  au- 


Consolidation  of  Fiefs  211 

thority  in  central  and  southern  Europe.  Here  feudalism 
kept  its  hold.  The  English  throne  profited  to  a  certain  ex- 
tent in  the  same  way  as  did  that  of  France,  and  for  the  same 
reasons. 

While  the  growth  of  royal  power  was  steady,  as  has  been 
seen,  it  was  mainly  at  the  expense  of  feudalism  as  vassals 
rushed  off  upon  a  crusade,  mortgaging  their  holdings  to  the 
king,  and  never  returned,  or,  returning,  were  too  poor  to 
lift  the  mortgages,  the  fiefs  thus  falling  to  the  king.  Thus 
the  royal  domain  continually  grew,  and  with  this  growth, 
the  extension  of  sovereign  power  which  ultimately  broke  up 
the  feudal  system  and  substituted  in  its  stead  an  absolute 
monarchy.  Many  estates  thus  accruing  to  the  king  were 
granted  by  him  to  ordinary  freemen  who  held  from  him  as  pa- 
tron and  paid  rent  in  kind.  The  feudal  method  of  warfare, 
independent  bands  of  retainers  under  the  command  of  their 
feudal  lord,  proved  to  be  inadequate  to  cope  with  the  Moslem 
armies  marshalled  under  one  skilled  commander.  The  waste 
incident  to  divided  authority  was  so  apparent  that  the  feudal 
nobility  themselves  recognized  it  and  proceeded  to  make  a 
study  of  the  military  tactics  of  the  Moslems,  thus  giving  rise 
to  modern  military  methods.  This  weakened  feudalism  which 
was  at  best  local  and  independent.  Again  the  feudal  idea 
that  service  flowed  only  from  land  ownership,  received  a  hard 
blow  which  shook  the  institution  to  its  foundations.  Both 
knights  and  barons  were  glad  enough  to  enroll  themselves  for 
pay  under  the  banner  of  some  great  chief.  The  forces  of 
Louis  IX  were  almost  wholly  recruited  in  this  way.  Thus 
royalty  was  enabled  to  make  head  against  the  anarchy  into 
which  feudalism  had  forced  society,  and  European  national 
life  began  to  shape  itself  into  form. 

As  feudalism  lost,  the  cities  of  Europe  gained.  These  cities 
were,  for  the  most  part,  located  upon  the  domain  of  some 
lord  and  were  by  him  taxed  in  accordance  with  the  terms  of 
the  charter  held  by  each  city.  The  burghers  made  up  a  non- 
feudal  class  and  were  not  subject  to  military  service.  When 
the  crusades  were  set  in  motion  the  feudal  lord  was  generally 
anxious  to  sell  his  right  over  the  city  upon  his  domain,  and 
the  city  was  equally  anxious  to  buy  its  freedom  and  thus 


212  The  History  of  Christianity 

become  its  own  master.  Kings,  too,  were  frequently  willing 
to  sell,  for  ready  money,  special  pri\dleges.  Thus  cities  grew 
in  wealth  and  population  and  became  the  market-places  of 
the  world. 

While  feudalism  was  falling  into  ruin  and  monarchy  grow- 
ing apace,  and  while  free  cities  were  coming  up  out  of  feudal 
bondage,  the  serf  and  the  villain  were  also  accomplishing 
something  toward  their  emancipation.  When  the  lord  was 
getting  ready  to  depart  upon  a  crusade  he  was  more  anxious 
to  have  his  purse  filled  with  gold  pieces  than  he  was  to  keep 
the  number  of  his  dependents.  He,  therefore,  sold  them  their 
freedom  in  case  they  could  raise  a  little  money.  Many  thus 
became  free.  Others  took  the  cross  and  were,  consequently, 
admitted  to  the  position  of  brothers-in-arms.  They  became 
paid  soldiers  and  thus  were  raised  in  dignity  and  power. 
"  The  returned  knight  could  no  longer  disdain  intercourse 
with  the  brave  men  whose  hamlet  nestled  beneath  liis  castle 
walls.  Their  common  courage,  their  many  scenes  with  which 
both  classes  were  familiar,  the  dangers  they  had  shared,  were 
repeated  in  story  and  song  about  the  castle  gate."  Thus 
were  silently  germinated  the  forces  of  the  commune  which 
Louis  IX  recognized  and  made  use  of. 

While  the  crusades,  as  we  have  seen,  affected  organized 
society  in  many  ways  sometimes  for  evil,  more  often  for  good, 
(the  institution  which  was  most  profoundly  affected  both  to 
its  advantage  and  disadvantage,  was  the  papacy. 

The  pope,  the  clergy,  and  the  monastic  institutions,  all 
derived  a  vast  accession  of  power,  influence  and  wealth  from 
the  crusades.  Great  wealth  came  to  the  papacy  by  means  of 
the  many  estates  which  the  departing  crusaders  left  in  either 
its  possession  or  trusteeship.  Before  Godfrey  of  Bouillon 
started  upon  the  first  crusade  he  alienated  large  portions  of 
his  ancestral  holdings  by  direct  gift  to  the  ecclesiastics. 
Other  lands  he  left  in  the  hands  of  the  pope  and  never  sub- 
sequently claimed  them.  Many  knights  returned  to  their 
homes  broken  in  health  by  the  hardships  of  the  journey  and 
depressed  in  spirit  with  the  failure  of  purpose  and  the 
"  vanity  of  life."  They  ended  their  days  in  monasteries 
wliich  they  endowed  with  the  remnant  of  their  estates.     The 


Increase  of  the  Power  of  Rome  213 

pope  further  enriched  the  papacy  by  levying  a  tax  upon  the 
secular  clergy  and  religious  houses  in  order  to  meet  the 
charges  of  the  crusading  venture.  The  vast  revenues  ob- 
tained in  this  manner  were  directed  from  their  original  pur- 
pose and  turned  into  the  general  uses  of  the  church.  The 
Countess  Matilda  died,  in  1115,  and  left  her  entire  domain 
to  the  pope.  The  addition  to  the  landed  possessions  of  the 
papacy  amounted  to  fully  one  fourth  of  Italy.  To  its  local 
property  in  Italy  the  papacy  held  by  gifts,  escheats,  and  pur- 
chase at  least  two-fifths  of  the  land  through  Europe. 

In  addition  to  the  immense  power  wielded  by  reason  of  this 
vast  wealth,  the  political  power  of  the  pope  was  greatly  ex- 
tended by  the  appointment  of  papal  legates.  On  certain 
occasions  the  pope  had  delegated  representatives  who,  in  his 
name,  investigated  causes  and  settled  disputes  at  a  distance 
from  the  papal  court.  During  the  crusades  this  legatine 
authority  was  thorouglil}'^  systematized  by  the  organization 
of  a  definite  body  of  men.  By  means  of  these  the  pope  was 
impersonated  at  every  court  and  in  every  emergency.  "  This 
system  of  being,  by  proxy,  everywhere  present  gave  to  the 
pope  a  tremendous  power  and  kept  the  people  in  awe  by 
the  terror  of  the  imagined  ubiquity  of  the  divine  presence." 

But  the  crusades  brought  also  a  quickening  of  inquiry  into 
every  department  of  human  welfare,  and  a  vast  increase  of 
knowledge.  This  intellectual  freedom  showed  itself  in  the 
political  life  of  the  people.  Soon  the  various  governments 
which  had  grown  strong  through  the  development  of  mon- 
archy, began  to  resent  the  absolutism  of  the  papal  throne. 
In  1253,  the  Englishman,  Robert  Grosseteste,  protested 
against  the  papal  exactions  in  England,  though  the  king  was 
utterly  subservient  to  Rome,  and  for  this  protest  history 
has  written  his  name  among  the  great  fathers  of  English 
liberty.  In  1279,  England  enacted  the  celebrated  statute 
of  Mortmain  which  forbade  the  alienation  of  property  to 
religious  bodies  without  the  consent  of  the  government. 
Similar  sentiment  was  working  in  France  which  culminated,  in 
1298,  in  open  rupture  between  France  and  Rome. 

With  Pope  Boniface  VHI  the  papacy  was  utterly  humili- 
ated in  a  struggle  with  Philip  the  Fair  of  France.     The 


214  The  History  of  Christianity 

throne  of  the  papacy  was  removed  to  Avignon  and  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  church  was  dictated  by  the  king  of  France 
for  nearly  seventy  years. 

With  the  destruction  of  papal  absolutism  there  came  the 
renaissance  of  free  thought  throughout  the  entire  world. 
The  Moslem  forces  were  not  conquered ;  heresy  was  not  con- 
quered; pagans  converted  by  the  sword  remained  pagans  at 
heart.  At  last  it  was  brought  home  to  the  conscience  of  the 
church,  by  wholesome  recollection,  the  command  of  the 
Savior  to  Peter:     "  Put  up  thy  sword." 

The  crusades  destroyed  the  last  hope  of  unity  between  the 
Greek  and  Latin  churches.  At  first  the  Greeks  had  looked 
towards  Rome  with  willing  eyes  and  saw  there  the  possible 
solution  of  the  difficulties  that  threatened.  But  as  the  cru- 
sades went  on  and  they  became  better  acquainted  with  the 
hard  and  cruel  warriors  from  the  West,  all  hope  of  union 
vanished  and  in  its  stead  came  hatred  and  contempt. 

So  the  age  of  the  crusades  passed  away  and  with  it  also 
passed  its  faith  and  its  ideals.  Says  Professor  Allen : 
"  The  crusades,  which  the  church  had  stimulated  so  eagerly 
and  forced  on  so  obstinately,  are  found  to  have  undermined 
the  very  foundation  of  faith,  on  which  the  church  reposed. 
Her  doctrine  of  austere  morality,  her  teaching  of  a  tender 
humanity,  were  contrasted  against  the  avalanche  of  crime 
she  had  let  loose,  the  appalling  cruelty  she  had  invoked. 
Her  system  of  doctrine,  which  looked  to  the  eye  like  a  granite 
foundation  of  her  spiritual  claim,  was  honeycombed  by  a 
thousand  speculations  set  adrift  in  that  sea  of  adventure. 
.  .  .  The  church  by  her  own  act  had  thrown  down  the  bar- 
riers which  guarded  her  domain  from  invasion  of  foreign  in- 
fluences ;  and  her  undivided  spiritual  empire  was  the  price  she 
had  to  pay.  The  crisis  was  long  in  passing.  .  .  .  And  when 
the  long  fever  of  the  cinisading  period  was  past,  Europe  had 
already  been  borne  into  the  consciousness  of  a  new,  a  richer, 
and  a  larger  life." 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

THE    CONVEKSION    OF    THE    GERMANS 

ALTHOUGH  the  great  Germanic  nations  of  Visigoths, 
Ostrogoths,  Burgundians,  Vandals,  Lombards,  Franks, 
and  Anglo-Saxons,  with  many  minor  tribes,  moved  out  from 
the  old  home  and  found  new  ones  for  themselves  inside  the 
boundaries  of  the  Roman  empire,  still  was  the  old  homeland 
of  the  Germanic  race  peopled  with  tribes  of  Germans  who 
wandered  through  their  native  forests ;  hunted  and  fished ; 
cultivated  the  fields ;  still  worshipped  the  old  German  gods, 
and  kept  alive  the  old  customs.  While  their  brothers  who 
wandered  forth  were  Christianized  and  fought  under  the  ban- 
ner of  Christ,  they  had  for  the  most  part  never  heard  His 
name,  but  still  lived  their  old  free  roving  life,  a  source  of 
danger  to  the  more  settled  and  civilized  nations  about  them. 
Lasting  peace  was  impossible  between  races  on  such  different 
bases  of  culture  and  so  wholly  antagonistic  to  one  another  in 
the  important  matters  of  life. 

The  Roman  empire  had  struggled  for  centuries  to  subdue 
the  Germans  and  bring  them  under  the  discipline  of  the  em- 
pire only  at  last  to  suffer  defeat  at  their  hand.  Christian 
Rome  now  undertook  to  conquer  the  soul  of  barbarism  itself. 
This  was  the  magnificent  scheme  of  Leo,  of  Gregory,  and  of 
the  English  Winfried  (Boniface).  This  thought  itself  was 
far-reaching  and  stupendous  in  the  face  of  all  the  empire  had 
striven  for  and  failed  to  accomplish.  Moreover,  the  means 
by  which  this  great  undertaking  was  carried  out  showed  a 
larger  political  grasp  and  greater  courage  than  that  mani- 
fested by  the  empire  at  its  best  estate.  The  weapons  of  the 
new  warfare  were  those  of  Christian  love.  The  Germans 
were  to  be  won  by  way  of  sympathy  and  conquered  through 
their  religious  awe.     The  men  who  went  out  to  undertake 

this  great  task  were  animated  with  a  great  j^earning  for  the 

215 


£16  The  History  of  Christianity 

salvation  of  these  people.      They  went  forth  clothed  for  their 
task  in  poverty,  austerity,  obedience,  and  self-denial. 

The  work  of  converting  the  Germans  in  their  old  home 
was  not  fairly  begun  before  the  opening  of  the  seventh  cen- 
tury. The  missionaries  who  addressed  themselves  to  this 
task  of  converting  the  Germans  may  be  for  convenience 
divided  into  three  classes  or  groups:  (1)  the  British,  (2) 
the  Frankish,  and  (3)  the  Anglo-Saxon  or  English. 

The  British  missionaries  who  had  found  for  a  time  such  a 
fruitful  field  in  the  conversion  of  the  various  tribes  of  Angles 
and  Saxons  in  Britain  were  now  cut  off  from  activity  in  this 
field  as  the  Roman  rule  and  discipline  had  been  established 
throughout  the  island.  The  religious  houses  of  the  Irish  and 
Scotch  were  full  to  overflowing  and  at  home  there  Avas  little 
for  them  to  do,  while  they  still  possessed  that  zeal  for  the 
cause  which  possessed  the  heart  of  St.  Patrick.  They  were 
now  attracted  to  pagan  Germany  as  a  field  for  labor.  The 
Frankish  missionaries  enjoyed  the  favor  of  the  Frankish 
kings.  Sometimes  this  was  an  aid  to  them,  as  was  the  case 
of  Clotair  I.  At  other  times  this  kingly  aid  was  merely  a 
new  danger  because  the  missionaries  were  looked  upon  as 
spies.  Lastly,  came  the  Anglo-Saxons.  While  the  British 
missionaries  were  independent  of  all  control,  the  Anglo- 
Saxons  who  had  finally  been  won  to  the  side  of  the  papacy, 
were  earnest  in  attaching  themselves  and  their  converts  to 
Rome.  The  language  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  monks  diverged 
.so  little  from  the  Low  Germans  of  Frisia  that  they  were  able 
to  work  with  great  advantage  and  could  win  where  the  Brit- 
ish and  Frankish  monks,  who  could  not  speak  or  understand 
the  German,  could  do  very  little.  It  was  thus  naturally 
settled  that  the  Anglo-Saxons  should  be  the  successful  mis- 
sionaries to  these  peoples. 

The  Scotch  and  Irish  missionaries  were  at  work  in  Ger- 
many before  Augustine  had  landed  on  the  shores  of  Kent. 
Fridolin  was  preaching  among  the  Alamanni,  in  589,  Colum- 
Ijanus  had  made  his  way  along  the  Danube  to  the  Vosges 
mountains.  Gallus,  the  pupil  of  Columbanus,  became  the 
Apostle  of  Switzerland  and  succeeded  in  converting  these 
people.     The  monastery  and  canton  of  St.  Gall  are  named 


Anglo-Saxon  Missionaries  217 

in  his  honor.  Ehgius,  Amandus,  and  Willibrod  labored 
with  the  wild  tribes  on  the  Scheldt,  and  in  Flanders  and 
Brabant.  These  missionaries  belonged  to  the  Roman  rather 
than  the  Celtic  group.  Behind  these  people,  now  partially 
Christianized,  lay  populous  regions  in  Frisia,  in  Hesse,  in 
Thuringia,  and  in  Saxony,  into  which  missionaries  had  as  yet 
made  no  entrance.  These  were  warrior  races  which  had 
never  bowed  to  Roman  arts  and  arms  and  had  scarcely  ever 
heard  of  Rome's  existence. 

Thus  while  a  beginning  had  been  made  in  the  more  ac- 
cessible portions,  Germany  yet  lay  practically  untouched  by 
Christianity  when  the  Englishman  Winfried  began  his  great 
missionary  work.  He  was  born  near  Kirton  in  Devonshire 
about  the  year  680.  His  father  intended  him  to  follow  secu- 
lar pursuits  and  to  be  heir  and  administrator  of  his  large 
property.  But  this  did  not  appeal  to  this  spiritual,  ambi- 
tious boy  who  from  early  youth  had  been  studious  and  re- 
ligious in  disposition.  He  had,  because  of  this  natural  lean- 
ing, been  placed  in  a  monastery  at  Exeter  from  which  place 
he  was  subsequently  removed  to  Winchester.  While  he  was 
yet  a  mere  boy  he  gained  praise  for  scholarship  and  teaching 
ability.  He  was  looked  upon  with  great  favor  by  Daniel, 
Bishop  of  Winchester,  to  whom  the  most  valuable  of  his  let- 
ters were  written  after  he  had  become  famous  as  a  missionary. 
Like  the  English  generally  he  was  fond  of  travel  and  inquisi- 
tive concerning  the  manners  and  customs  of  other  peoples. 
He  was  also  attracted  by  the  great  opportunities  for  mis- 
sionary work  which  opened  up  on  the  continent.  Soon,  there- 
fore, after  his  ordination  as  a  priest  he  left  England  with  a 
few  companions,  and  went  to  Frisia  where  he  intended  to 
work.  Here  he  found  Willibrod,  an  English  missionary  from 
York  who  had  arrived  in  Frisia  in  687,  immediately  after 
Pippin  had  extended  the  power  of  the  Franks  b}'  winning  the 
battle  of  Testry.  Willibrod's  name  had  been  changed  to 
Clement  and  he  had  been  consecrated  Bishop  of  Utrecht. 
But  the  Frisian  king  had  taken  advantage  of  the  disorder 
following  the  death  of  Pippin,  to  attempt  the  crushing  of 
Christianity,  and  stopped  the  work  of  missionaries.  Boni- 
face went  back  to  England  and,  in  718,  made  a  fresh  start. 


218  The  History  of  Christianity 

He  went  to  Rome  where  he  received  the  aid  and  advice  of  the 
pope,  Gregory  II,  and  a  general  commission  for  missionary 
work  in  central  Europe.  Winifried  (now  known  as  Boniface) 
was  now  38  years  old,  having  been  born  in  the  time  of  Theo- 
dore who  had  been  consecrated  and  sent  to  England  as  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury  by  pope  Vitalian,  in  668,  four  years 
after  the  English,  at  the  Council  of  Whitby,  had  proclaimed 
their  adherence  to  the  ecclesiastical  rites  and  customs  held 
by  the  church  of  Rome.  Theodore  had  confirmed  the  action 
of  the  Council  and  crystallized  the  results.  He  established 
schools  which  did  away  mth  the  previous  dependence  upon 
Ireland  for  intellectual  light  and  religious  inspiration.  He 
unified  the  English  church  and  brought  it  into  harmony  with 
Rome.  The  diocesan  organization  prevalent  in  the  Eastern 
system  and  which  was  established  by  the  canons  of  Chalcedon, 
was  introduced  by  Theodore  into  England.  The  Council  of 
Hertford,  where  this  great  work  of  diocesan  systematization 
was  formally  adopted  and  established,  had  been  held  in  673, 
only  a  few  years  before  the  birth  of  Boniface.  He  was, 
therefore,  acquainted  with  this  system  in  its  freshness  and 
was  educated  in  one  of  the  schools  established  by  Theodore. 
It  was  with  the  practical  working  of  this  system  well  in 
mind,  and  with  great  respect  and  deep  gratitude  and  devo- 
tion to  the  Roman  see  which  was  felt  throughout  England  at 
this  time,  as  is  seen  in  the  pages  of  Bede's  history,  that  Boni- 
face presented  himself  before  the  pope,  in  718,  and  received 
his  commission. 

As  soon  as  he  left  Rome  he  went  to  Bavaria  and  Thuringia 
where  he  attempted  to  organize  and  establish  the  labors  of  the 
Irish  and  early  Prankish  missionaries,  but  this  brought  him 
little  success,  and  he  passed  on  to  Frisia  and  made  his  way 
to  Utrecht,  the  seat  of  the  bishopric  of  Willibrod.  Here  he 
labored  for  three  years  as  Willibrod's  assistant,  learning 
much  of  the  practical  work  of  the  missionary  from  this  aged 
and  heroic  bishop.  Willibrod  wished  him  to  stay  and  offered 
him  a  bishopric,  but  Boniface  was  restless  and  desirous  of 
pushing  on  into  new  fields.  He  left  the  Frisian  field  and 
started  a  new  and  independent  work  among  the  Hessians  and 
Saxons.     Here  he  met  with  immediate  success   and  in  the 


Boniface  219 

following  year  was  summoned  to  Rome  by  the  pope.  He  was 
examined  as  regards  the  faith  and  ordained  bishop  without 
any  special  see,  and  took  the  oath  that  subsequently  became 
so  famous  and  which  bound  him  and  his  work  to  permanent 
unity  with  Rome.  This  oath  was  as  follows  :  "  In  the  names 
of  God  the  Lord  and  our  Savior  Jesus  Christ,  ...  I,  Boni- 
face, by  the  grace  of  God ;  bishop,  do  promise  to  thee,  blessed 
Peter,  Prince  of  the  Apostles,  and  to  thy  vicar,  the  blessed 
Gregory,  pope,  and  to  his  successors  .  .  .  that  I  will  main- 
tain the  whole  faith  and  purity  of  the  holy  Catholic  faith 
and  by  the  help  of  God  will  continue  in  the  unity  of  that 
faith  .  .  .  and  that  in  no  way  will  I  agree  with  anything 
contrary  to  the  unity  of  the  general  and  universal  church 
under  any  persuasion  whatever;  but,  as  I  have  said,  I  will 
in  every  way  maintain  my  faith  pure,  and  my  cooperation 
constantly  for  thee,  and  for  the  benefit  of  thy  church,  upon 
which  was  bestowed  by  God  the  power  to  bind  and  to  loose, 
and  for  thy  vicar  aforesaid,  and  for  his  successors.  And 
whenever  I  find  that  the  conduct  of  the  presiding  officers  of 
the  churches  contradicts  the  ancient  decrees  of  the  holy 
fathers,  I  will  have  no  fellowship  or  connection  with  them, 
but,  on  the  contrary,  I  will  prevent  them  if  I  can,  and  if  not, 
I  will  report  faithfully  at  once  to  my  apostolic  lord.  .  .  . 
Moreover,  this  declaration  of  my  oath,  I,  Boniface,  a  humble 
bishop,  have  written  with  my  own  hand,  and  upon  the  most 
holy  body  of  the  blessed  Peter  I  have  taken  the  oath  as  above 
written,  which  also  I  promise  to  God  being  my  witness  and 
judge."  This  oath  would  imply  that  the  work  of  Boniface 
was  not  so  much  to  carry  Christianity  to  people  who  knew 
nothing  of  it,  but  to  organize  and  unify  what  had  already 
been  done  by  others,  to  accomplish  for  Germany  what  Theo- 
dore had  done  for  England. 

It  was  the  lack  of  discipline  and  effective  organization  in 
the  work  of  the  Scotch  and  Irish  missionaries  that  had  ren- 
dered their  work  almost  fruitless  and  introduced  discord  and 
corrupt  and  heretical  practices.  The  increasing  power  of 
the  bishop  of  Rome  which  was  revealed  in  directing,  restor- 
ing, and  consolidating  the  Christian  church,  was  aided  in 
every  way  by  the  support  of  the  Prankish  rulers.     This  was 


220  The  History  of  Christianity 

made  effectual  by  the  alliance  of  the  Frankish  kingdom  with 
the  Roman  church.  It  gave  the  sword  of  the  Frank  to  the 
papacy  and  furnished  both  protection  and  discipline. 

The  man  preeminently  fitted  for  this  task  of  unification  and 
organization  was  Boniface,  the  English  missionary.  He  was 
"  endowed  with  great  prudence  and  foresight,  a  scholar  and  a 
teacher  with  a  rare  genius  for  organization  and  administra- 
tion. To  him  true  Christianity  was  impossible  except  in 
union  with  the  papacy.  He  was  determined  to  make  Ger- 
many as  united  and  devoted  to  the  pope  as  England  had 
become.  Leaving  Rome  he  went  immediately  to  the  court  of 
Charles  Martel  with  letters  of  recommendation  from  the  pope. 
Charles  gladly  took  him  under  his  protection  and  sent  him 
along  with  his  troops  among  the  Hessians.  Roman  mis- 
sionaries had  preceded  him  and  this  made  his  work  more 
difficult  but  he  finally  succeeded  in  his  task.  He  established 
among  the  Franks  and  their  dependents,  monasteries  and 
bishoprics  as  centers  of  learning  and  authority  wherever 
there  were  suitable  places.  Monks  and  nuns  came  over  from 
England  as  teachers  and  exemplars  of  right  living  among  the 
people.  When,  in  731,  Gregory  III  became  pope  the  friendly 
relations  with  the  papacy  continued  unbroken  and,  in  732, 
the  pope  sent  the  pallium  to  Boniface  and  made  him  an  arch- 
bishop or  metropolitan  and  placed  him  in  charge  of  the 
northern  districts  of  Germany  where  he  had  spent  some  years 
of  labor,  especially  in  the  bishoprics  of  Tongres,  Cologne,  Ut- 
recht, Worms,  and  Spires.  In  the  year  738  he  made  his  last 
visit  to  Rome.  Here  he  was  invested  with  the  powers  and 
authority  of  a  papal  legate,  and  given  a  commission  to  visit 
the  Bavarian  church.  This  he  did  with  very  marked  suc- 
cess, bringing  about  a  complete  organization  of  the  church 
and  establishing  the  four  bishoprics  of  Salzburg,  Freising, 
Soisson,  and  Ragensburg  or  Ratisbon.  In  740,  he  held  a 
synod  of  the  whole  Bavarian  church  in  which  many  important 
questions  were  debated  and  settled.  Here  he  planned  the 
establishment  of  several  new  bishoprics  in  the  north;  sub- 
sequently he  carried  this  plan  to  completion,  creating  the 
bishoprics  of  Eichstadt,  Wurtzburg,  Buraburg,  and  Erfurt, 

Charles  Martel  died  in  741,  leaving  his  kingdom  to  his  two 


Boniface  221 

sons  Karlman  and  Pippin.  These  rulers  were  better  dis- 
posed to  Rome  than  was  their  father  who,  in  his  great  strug- 
gle with  the  Saracens  had  taken  from  the  church  the  vast 
landed  estates  which  had  been  bestowed  upon  it  by  the  Mer- 
ovingian rulers  to  the  impoverishment  of  the  state.  The 
church  in  retaliation  had  opposed  Charles  in  every  way  it 
could,  thus  alienating  his  good  will.  The  young  kings  did  not 
feel  the  resentment  of  their  father  and  the  church,  seeing  its 
opportunity,  was  willing  to  go  more  than  half  way  in  order  to 
reestablish  the  oldtime  union  and  s\'mpathy.  The  work  of 
organization  which  Boniface  had  carried  on  among  the  Frie- 
sians,  Hessians,  Thuringians,  and  Bavarians  of  the  north 
and  east,  made  it  more  and  more  essential  to  organize  upon 
the  same  pattern  the  great  Kingdom  of  the  Franks,  and  so 
to  create  the  dioceses  and  the  synods  of  this  system.  The 
first  so-called  German  synod  was  held  at  the  request  of 
Karlman,  in  742,  in  order  to  establish  ecclesiastical  govern- 
ment throughout  his  dominions  where  confusion  had  reigned 
for  more  than  seventy  years.  The  acts  of  this  synod  were 
published  in  the  name  of  Karlman,  but  Boniface  as  arch- 
bishop and  papal  legate  held  the  chief  position.  The  work 
of  organization  was  taken  up  immediately  and  new  bishoprics 
created  in  the  chief  cities ;  to  the  bishops  of  them  the  clergy 
of  the  district  were  made  subordinate  while  the  newly  ap- 
pointed bishops  of  the  province  were  made  subordinate  to  the 
bishop  of  the  chief  city  or  metropolis,  who  as  archbishop  or 
metropolitan  was  subject  to  the  pope.  Thus  was  completed 
the  organization  of  the  church  throughout  the  Frankish 
kingdom,  on  the  pattern  of  Theodosius'  organization  of  the 
church  in  England.  This  may  be  considered  as  finished  by 
the  middle  of  the  eighth  century.  Boniface  took  up  his  resi- 
dence at  Mainz,  in  T'lS,  as  archbishop.  This  position  he  held 
till  753  when  he  resigned  the  office  and  secured  the  appoint- 
ment of  Lull,  his  most  distinguished  disciple,  as  his  successor. 
With  a  band  of  some  fifty  companions  he  now  took  up  again 
his  old  missionary  labors  in  Frisia.  Here  he  was  murdered- 
by  a  band  of  heathens,  in  755,  and  so  received  the  honor  of 
the  martyr's  crown.  His  bones  finall}^  were  put  to  rest  in 
Fulda. 


222  The  History  of  Christianity 

In  744,  but  shortly  before  his  settlement  at  Mainz,  Boni- 
face laid  the  foundations  of  the  monastery  at  Fulda  which 
was  destined  to  become  one  of  the  three  great  centers  of 
learning  in  Europe.  The  other  two  were  St.  Gall,  founded 
by  Gallus,  the  disciple  of  Columbanus,  in  646,  and  Reiche- 
nach,  founded,  in  724,  by  Piriminius,  a  Frankish  missionary. 

"  The  Christian  zeal  of  Boniface  was  unsurpassed.  The 
simplicity  of  his  aims,  his  earnest  anxiety  for  the  very  best 
things  for  the  German  church,  his  lifelong  interest  in  his  Eng- 
lish home,  his  wide  and  living  sympathies  —  all  these  are  re- 
flected in  his  correspondence.  In  organizing  Germany  under 
the  Roman  see,  he  not  only  followed  the  drift  of  the  age,  but 
he  was  doing  the  best  he  knew  to  conserve  and  consolidate  a 
Christian  civilization  in  an  age  of  anarchy  and  barbarism. 
He  was  a  scholar,  a  civilizer,  and  a  statesman." 


CHAPTER  XXX 

THE    CONVEKSION    OF    SCANDINAVIA 

THE  work  of  Christianizing  Germany  was  scarcely  com- 
pleted when  missionaries  began  their  work  in  the  far 
north  in  those  lands  which  were  pouring  forth  swarms  of 
pirates  on  all  the  coasts  of  Europe.  Their  daring  and  cease- 
less invasions  were  the  terror  and,  at  the  same  time,  the  won- 
der of  all  the  Christianized  nations.  Palgrave  says  :  "  Take 
a  map  and  color  with  vermilion  the  provinces,  districts  and 
shores  which  the  Northmen  visited  as  a  record  of  each  inva- 
sion. The  coloring  will  have  to  be  repeated  more  than 
ninety  times  successively  before  you  arrive  at  the  conclu- 
sion of  the  Carlovingian  dynasty.  Furthermore,  mark  by 
the  usual  symbol  of  war,  two  crossed  swords,  the  localities 
where  battles  were  fought  by  or  against  the  pirates ;  where 
they  were  defeated  or  triumphant,  or  where  they  pillaged, 
burned,  destroyed;  and  the  valleys  and  banks  of  the  Elbe, 
Rhine,  and  Moselle,  Scheldt,  Meuse,  Somme,  and  Seine,  Loire, 
Garonne,  and  Adone,  the  island  Allier,  and  all  the  coasts  and 
coast-lands  between  estuary  and  estuary,  and  the  countries 
between  the  river  streams,  will  appear  bristling  as  with 
chevaux-de-frise.  The  strongly  fenced  Roman  cities,  the 
venerated  abbeys,  and  their  dependent  bourgates,  often  more 
flourishing  and  extensive  than  the  ancient  seats  of  govern- 
ment, the  opulent  seaports  and  trading  towns,  were  all 
equally  exposed  to  the  Danish  attacks,  stunned  by  the  North- 
men's approach,  subjugated  by  their  fury." 

The  invasion  of  these  pirates  had  disturbed  the  peace  of  the 
last  years  of  Charlemagne  himself.  He  had  seen  their  ap- 
proach with  something  of  an  understanding  of  the  danger 
which  they  threatened.  To  meet  this  danger  he  planned  the 
building  of  a  great  navy,  and  the  erection  of  strong  forts, 
with  garrisons,  at  the  mouths  of  the  rivers.     But  death  re- 

223 


224  The  History  of  Christianity 

moved  the  only  one  who  understood  or  had  the  power  to  meet 
the  danger  threatening  from  the  North.  His  silly  successors 
utterly  neglected  these  necessary  defenses  and  left  the  coun- 
try at  their  mercy.  The  Northmen  took  advantage  of  this 
defenceless  condition  to  swarm  up  every  river  and  waste  and 
burn  everything  that  their  fancy  cared  not  to  carry  off. 

Such  were  the  people  with  whom  Christianity  had  next 
to  do  battle. 

Willibrod  had  crossed  the  Eider,  in  636,  in  his  missionary 
journeys.  Harold,  king  of  the  Jutes,  for  political  reasons, 
had  sought  the  protection  of  the  Franks  about  the  same  time. 
Ebo,  Archbishop  of  Rheims,  crossed  the  Eider,  in  823,  with 
an  imperial  embassy.  He  baptized  some  Danes  and  returned 
in  a  year  with  several  young  Jutes  whom  he  intended  to  edu- 
cate as  missionaries.  These  movements  paved  the  way  for 
the  missionaries. 

In  the  abbey  of  Corbey,  near  Amiens,  there  was  a  humble 
monk  belonging  to  a  noble  French  family,  by  name,  Anschar. 
He  was  of  gentlest  disposition,  but  of  deep  and  settled  piety. 
It  is  recorded  that  when  a  mere  youth  a  beautiful  vision  came 
to  him.  He  suddenly  died  and  at  the  moment  of  his  death, 
St.  Peter  and  John  the  Baptist  appeared  before  him.  He 
was  conducted  by  them  to  purgatory,  where  he  passed  three 
days  in  such  darkness  and  suffocation  that  they  seemed  a 
thousand  years.  He  passed  on  to  heaven,  whose  glory  he 
beheld.  A  voice  of  the  most  exquisite  sweetness  but  so  clear 
that  it  seemed  to  fill  the  world,  spoke  to  him  out  of  the  un- 
approachable light,  "  Go  and  return  hither  crowned  with 
martyrdom."  "  On  this  triumphant  end,  which  he  gained  at 
last,  not  by  the  sword,  but  by  the  slow  mortification  of  his 
life,  was  thenceforth  set  the  soul  of  Anschar."  (Milman.) 
Soon  after  this  vision  he  entered  the  monastery  of  Corbey 
where  he  remained  till  the  monks  of  Corbey  founded  a  new 
monastery  on  the  Weser,  west  of  Paderborn,  as  an  outpost 
for  missionary  activities.  Of  this  monastery  of  New  Corbey 
Anschar  was  chosen  Prior  in  822.  He  began  his  missionary 
labors  in  Schleswig  accompanied  by  Autbert,  a  man  of  noble 
birth,  who  was  led  by  the  enthusiasm  of  Anschar  to  become 
a  monk,  and  afterward  to  join  him  in  his  missionary  labors. 


Missionary  Movements  —  Anschar  225 

Here  they  founded  a  boys'  school,  chiefly  by  buying  Danish 
slaves  and  educating  them,  redeeming  Christian  prisoners  of 
war,  and  preaching  Christ  to  the  pagans.  Anschar  does  not 
seem  to  have  made  much  headway  in  this  missionary  attempt. 
Harold  was  driven  from  his  throne  by  his  heathen  subjects 
and  the  missionaries  were  compelled  to  flee  from  the  coun- 
try. But  while  the  door  to  Denmark  was  closed  for  a  time, 
that  of  Sweden  was  suddenly  opened.  Ambassadors  from  the 
coast  of  Sweden  to  the  court  of  Louis  the  Pious  brought  the 
word  that  there  were  some  merchants  and  prisoners  in  their 
country  who  were  Christians  and  who  would  welcome  the 
visit  of  missionaries.  In  830  Anschar  and  several  com- 
panions undertook  the  mission  to  Sweden,  but  were  pillaged 
by  pirates  on  the  way.  When  they  arrived  at  Buka  on  Lake 
Malar,  the  governor  of  this  city  was  baptized  and  built,  at 
his  own  expense,  a  church  for  their  use.  The  king  gave  him 
full  liberty  to  preach  the  Gospel  as  he  wished.  Here  he 
found  many  Christian  prisoners  who  were  overjoyed  to  wel- 
come a  priest  who  could  administer  the  sacraments.  After 
the  lapse  of  nearly  two  years  Anschar  returned  to  France 
and  a  Frankish  monk,  Goughert  by  name,  was  sent  to  Sweden 
as  Bishop  of  Sweden. 

In  the  meantime  the  archbishopric  of  Hamburg  had  been 
founded  and  Anschar  was  elevated  to  the  see  which  included 
the  northern  land.  Here  a  cathedral  was  built  (832)  and 
many  more  bright  Danish  boys  were  brought  to  be  educated 
for  the  priesthood.  Anschar  also  sent  more  priests  to 
Sweden.  But  the  Northmen  had  as  yet  learned  no  respect 
for  Christianity.  They  surprised  and  burned  Hamburg, 
cathedral  and  all.  Anschar  scarcely  escaped,  saving  nothing 
but  the  relics  of  some  saints.  The  times  seemed  dark  indeed 
for  Christianity.  Louis  the  Pious  died  in  840.  Harold  of 
Denmark  detested  Christianity  and  went  back  to  paganism, 
and  uprisings  drove  out  the  missionaries  and  the  bishop  was 
compelled  to  leave  the  kingdom.  This  calamity,  however, 
was  quickly  retrieved.  The  archbishopric  of  Hamburg  was 
united  to  that  of  Bremen  and  Anschar  was  made  the  arch- 
bishop. News  now  came  from  Sweden  which  was  encourag- 
ing, and  Anschar  decided  to  return  to  that  country  and  take 


226  The  History  of  Christianity 

"up  again  the  work  of  converting  their  people.  He  first  went 
to  the  king  with  costly  presents  and  invited  him  to  a  feast, 
but  the  king,  although  he  accepted  the  presents  and  attended 
the  feast,  was  not  willing  to  act  without  the  vote  of  his  peo- 
ple. He  called  the  people  together  in  their  parliament  and 
the  herald  proclaimed  the  object  of  the  meeting.  The  people 
after  a  spirited  debate  decided  to  recognize  Christ  as  one  of 
tlie  gods  and  Christianity  became  a  permanent  religion.  The 
building  of  churches  was  permitted  and  priests  were  allowed 
to  celebrate  the  mysteries  of  the  faith.  Christianity  was  now 
allowed  without  interruption  to  push  on  to  the  conversion 
of  the  kingdom,  but  it  took  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  to  com- 
plete the  work  thus  begun  by  Anschar.  Knut  the  Great, 
after  he  had  united  the  Christian  kingdoms  of  England  and 
Denmark,  sent  English  priests  and  bishops  to  his  old  home 
to  complete  the  conversion  of  his  entire  continental  realm. 

Anschar  now  returned  to  Denmark  and  again  set  up  the 
cross,  having  been  made  commissioner  to  Denmark  by  Louis 
the  Pious.  He  gained  the  confidence  of  Eric,  and  his  alms- 
giving and  reputation  as  a  worker  of  miracles  produced  a 
great  impression  on  the  simple  minds  of  the  people.  He 
founded  a  church  at  Schleswig,  one  of  the  most  important 
towns  of  Denmark,  and,  in  896,  he  built  another  at  Ripe. 
Under  the  reign  of  Eric  II  (855)  the  conversion  of  the  people 
went  on  so  rapidly  that  complete  toleration  was  granted  to 
the  Christians  and  the  nation  became  nominally  a  Christian 
nation. 

Anschar  was  a  model  of  Christianity  in  his  age.  During 
all  his  life  he  kept  up  the  rigor  of  his  monkish  habit.  He 
-wore  a  haircloth  shirt  by  night  and  day.  He  created  a  hos- 
pital for  the  sick  at  Bremen  and  did  much  of  the  nursing 
himself.  He  distributed  a  tenth  of  his  income  among  the 
poor  and  tithed  his  income  afresh  every  fifth  year.  He  was 
wont  to  say :  "  One  miracle  I  would  ask  of  the  Lord,  and 
that  is  that  by  his  grace  he  would  make  me  a  good  man." 
He  died  in  865  without  having  gained  his  life's  wish :  that  of 
martyrdom. 

Hacon,  the  son  of  Harold,  the  great  "  unifier  of  Norway," 
had  been  brought  up  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  court  where  he  had 


St.  Olaf  227 

been  trained  in  the  Christian  faith.  Upon  his  return  to  Nor- 
way, in  934,  he  tried  to  introduce  Christianity^  as  the  national 
religion  but  the  turbulent  nobility  would  not  consent.  After 
a  revolution  in  government,  Olaf  Tryggveson  became  king 
(955-1000),  He  had  been  something  of  a  traveller,  and  had 
come  into  contact  with  Christian  teachers,  monks,  and  oth- 
ers who  had  made  a  lasting  impression  upon  him.  He  visited 
Ireland  where  he  found  many  of  liis  own  countrymen.  This 
had  been  Christianized  by  native  monks  and  priests.  Olaf 
became  a  Christian  while  staying  at  Dublin  and  was  bap- 
tized. Shortly  after  he  married  the  daughter  of  Olaf  Kva- 
ran,  Wlien  he  became  the  ruler  of  Norway  he  tried  earnestly 
to  convert  the  nation  to  Christianity.  He  finally  succeeded 
by  strategy,  craft,  persuasion,  fraud,  and  even  cruelty,  in 
bringing  the  country  to  an  unwilling  obedience  to  Christ. 
Tryggveson  was  a  picturesque  figure  in  the  histor}^  of  Nor- 
way. He  had  his  heart  set  on  the  overthrow  of  the  worship 
of  Odin  which  had  been  the  worship  of  his  fathers.  He  used 
rude  and  cruel  methods  in  his  endeavors  at  evangelism.  He 
finally  stirred  up  the  opposition  of  his  nobility  who  called 
in  Knut  of  Denmark  to  aid  them.  Olaf  was  slain  in  battle, 
in  1000,  and  Knut  for  a  time  added  the  kingdom  to  that  of 
Denmark.  Christianity  went  forward  slowly  until,  in  1035, 
when  Knut  was  driven  out  and  Magnus  the  Great  was  seated 
on  the  throne.  Christianity  became  the  national  faith  of 
Norway.  Iceland  was  also  a  Norse  stronghold,  having  early 
been  settled  by  them.  In  981  Thorwald  and  Frederic  la- 
bored there  as  missionaries.  A  council  of  the  island  ordered 
these  missionaries  to  leave  in  988.  But  Doukbrand,  a  Saxon 
missionary,  took  up  the  work  again  in  997  and  succeeded  so 
well  that  Christianity  was  recognized  in  1000  as  the  official 
religion  and  in  1016  the  whole  island  was  Christianized.  Ice- 
land was  colonized  in  986  by  Northmen  from  Ireland.  They 
were  converted  to  the  Christian  faith  in  1000,  thus  complet- 
ing the  work  of  missionaries  in  the  great  northwest  terri- 
tories. 

If  we  examine  closely  the  characteristics  of  the  Germans, 
which  have  now  been  passed  in  rapid  review  before  our  eyes, 
the  most  striking  of  all  will  appear  to  be  the  intense  indi- 


228  The  History  of  Christianity 

vidualism  and  passion  for  personal  independence  which  domi- 
nated each  member  of  the  race.  This  feeling  of  personal,  as 
distinct  from  political  or  corporate  independence,  was  un- 
known to  the  Romans  and  antiquity  generally.  In  fact  the 
Roman  was  so  utterly  void  of  this  element  that  he  necessarily 
failed  of  comprehending  the  personal  element  in  Christianity 
and  satisfied  his  soul  with  forms  and  ceremonies.  It  was 
the  German  who  brought  the  passion  for  personal  independ- 
ence into  the  national  society  of  that  day  and,  like  new  wine 
in  old  bottles,  it  quickly  proved  too  strong  for  its  Roman 
environment.  After  this  spirit  of  liberty  had  destroyed  the 
empire  the  Germanic  peoples  assimilated  in  some  measure 
the  principles  of  liberty  derived  from  the  Gospel  and  became 
the  fountain  of  modern  society.  The  conversion  of  the  great 
Germanic  races  is  the  certain  prophecy  of  the  Reformation. 


CHAPTER  XXXI 


THE    SLAVS 


THE  principal  representatives  of  the  Slavonic  tribes  in 
modern  Europe  are  the  Russians,  with  the  various  Pohsh 
nationalities,  the  Servians,  the  Hungarian  Slovaks,  the  Slavs 
of  the  Austrian  empire,  such  as  the  Illyrians,  Styrians,  Co- 
rinthians, and  the  Tcheks  of  Bohemia.     A  large  infusion  of 
Slavonic    blood    has    also    taken    place    among   the    modern 
Greeks.     The  name  Slav  is  from  *'  Slava,"  a  term  in  their 
language  meaning  "  speech  "  or  "  tongue,"  and  is  a  term  to 
distinguish  the  persons  of  their  own  race  from  "  foreigners  " 
who  could  not  speak  their  language.     When  they  first  came 
into  touch  with  Latins  they  were  called  Veneti  which  was  but 
a  Latin  corruption   of  the  Greek  Henetoi.     The  Germans 
called  them  Wenden  (Wends).     They  called  themselves  Serbi 
or  Servi,  a  name  which  has  been  preserved  by  their  modern 
descendants,  the  Servians.     Caesar  tells  us  of  Veneti  on  the 
Atlantic  sea-board,  where,  doubtless,  they  were  mingled  with 
Celtic  tribes.     Other  Veneti  settled  beside  the  northern  angle 
of  the  Adriatic,   in   a   district  where  afterwards   arose  the 
beautiful  and  glorious  city  of  Venice.     But  we  are  more  con- 
cerned to  determine  their  locality  in  the  fourth  century  after 
Christ,  when  in  combination  with  members  of  the  Turanian 
stock  they  broke  in  upon  the  Roman  frontier.     A  vast  tri- 
angular space  between  the  Baltic  and  the  Black  Sea,  having 
its  apex  at  the  Carpathian  Mountains,  and  for  its  base  a 
very  indefinite  line,  bisecting  European  Russia  from  north- 
west to  southeast,  may  serve  to  indicate  in   general  terms 
the  situation  of  the  Slavonic  tribes  at  this  era.      But  being 
hard  pressed  by  the  Teutonic  populations  on  one  side  and 
the  wild  nomads  of  Asia,  the  Bulgarians,  Avars,  and  Huns, 
upon  the  other,  they  did  not  succeed  in  establishing  free  na- 
tionalities of  their  own  but  were  placed  in  subjection  to  their 

229 


230  The  History  of  Christianity 

neighbors.  After  the  death  of  Attila,  being  released  from 
bondage  to  the  Huns  by  the  disruption  of  their  empire,  and 
neglected  by  the  Germans  who  were  pouring  over  the  Balkans 
and  the  Alps,  they  acquired  some  degree  of  independence 
and  foiTned  an  alliance  with  the  Huns,  and  with  the  Bulgari- 
ans, against  the  Greek  empire.  Of  the  Slavs  themselves  we 
may  for  convenience  give  their  divisions  or  principal 
branches.  The  most  eastern  were  the  Antes,  who  stretched 
over  the  Euxine,  and  extended  into  the  country  between  the 
Don  and  the  Dnieper.  This  division  is  the  parent  of  the 
great  Russian  people.  The  western  group  were  Veneti  or 
Wends  who  rested  upon  the  Baltic  and  marched  to  the  Car- 
pathian Mountains.  It  is  with  this  great  portion  of  the 
Slavonic  family  that  the  Greeks  and  the  Romans  were  ac- 
quainted. Between  these  groups  were  the  Slovenis  or  Sla- 
vones,  who  appear  to  have  possessed  organization  and  racial 
cohesion  more  than  the  other  two,  and  are  found  mingled 
sometimes  with  the  eastern  and  sometimes  with  the  western 
branch  in  their  migrations  and  enterprises. 

The  personal  and  social  characteristics  of  the  Slavs  dis- 
tinguished them  from  the  Teuton.  Procopius  describes  them 
as  "  an  unclean  race  dwelling  in  miserable  hovels  of  mud 
and  reeds,  which  were  scattered  at  rare  intervals  among 
impervious  forests  and  morasses ;  they  lived  a  life  of  promis- 
cuous intercourse,  and  were  either  entirely  naked,  without 
dress,  or  clad  themselves  in  the  skins  of  beasts,  or  a  suit  of 
dark  tissue  woven  by  the  women,  from  which  the  nation  de- 
rived a  particular  name.  They  are  said  to  have  smeared 
their  bodies  with  soot,  and  to  have  eaten  the  flesh  of  all  sorts 
of  animals,  even  the  most  noisome  and  disgusting.  They 
possessed  in  large  degree  the  virtues  of  hospitality,  ex- 
hibiting these  to  the  stranger;  they  were  distinguished  for 
the  veracity  and  good  faith  which  marks  the  actions  of  the 
Bedouin  of  the  desert  under  similar  circumstances.  In  war 
they  were  treacherous  and  cruel.  Armed  with  long  lances, 
a  bow  and  a  quiver  of  poisoned  arrows,  the  Slavonic  warrior 
stole  warily  upon  his  enemy  and  slew  him  from  ambush.  .  .  . 
His  moral  and  religious  instincts  were  of  the  lowest  kind.  Of 
marriage  he  had  no  notion ;  his  worship  was  a  f etichism  of  the 


Character  of  the  Slavs  231 

ordinary  sort  practiced  among  savages,  mingled  with  sor- 
cery. They  beheved  in  the  existence  of  a  Good  and  Evil 
Being  but  worshipped  only  the  Evil  in  order  to  propitiate 
him."  Thus  Procopius  sketches  the  Slavs.  As  he  was  an 
enemy  doubtless  he  has  exaggerated.  They  were,  generally 
speaking,  sallow-skinned,  with  long,  lank,  dark  hair,  and 
small,  deep-set  eyes,  of  firmly-formed  frames,  though  not  ex- 
hibiting the  stalwart  chest  and  shoulder  which  marks  the 
Teuton  and  the  Celt.  The  cunning  in  all  species  of  decep- 
tion, ambuscade,  and  stratagem  of  which  Procopius  speaks 
is  still  discernible  in  the  national  character  and  has  also  its 
more  favorable  developments  in  productive  skill,  and  a  very 
remarkable  faculty  of  imitation.  Their  courage  is  more 
passive  than  active  in  its  character.  This  has  been  demon- 
strated in  the  various  European  wars  in  which  they  have 
taken  a  part. 

The  Slavs  were  very  largely  made  tributary  by  Attila  and 
followed  his  banner  and  fought  in  all  his  wars.  But  when 
Attila  died  his  empire  quickl}^  went  to  pieces  and  in  the  great 
battle  of  Netad  the  Ostrogoths  overthrew  the  Huns  and  the 
subject  nations  were  set  free.  But  this  freedom  availed  lit- 
tle and  for  one  hundred  years  we  hear  almost  nothing  from 
them.  Then  they  are  associated  with  that  non-Slavic,  but 
Turanian  horde,  the  Bulgarians,  in  their  descent  upon  the 
Eastern  empire.  Belisarius,  the  famous  general  of  Justin- 
ian, administered  a  crushing  defeat  upon  these  invaders. 
They  engaged  in  a  long  struggle  with  the  Franks  under 
Dagobert,  in  631,  where  they  were  at  least  partially  suc- 
cessful, until  their  leader,  Samo,  died.  Then  their  scat- 
tered tribes  broke  from  their  loose  federation  and  sought 
separate  settlements.  Croats  and  Serbs  settled  in  Moesia 
and  Dalmatia,  Others  became  tributary  to  Charlemagne. 
Of  these  the  Czekhs  of  Bohemia  were  the  most  conspicuous. 
Many  Slavic  tribes  were  settled  on  the  borders  of  the  Baltic 
and  rose  to  some  consideration,  from  their  commerce  and  ex- 
tensive marts  at  Arkona,  Kiel,  and  Novgorod.  They  long 
continued  pagans. 

In  the  conversion  of  the  Slavs  to  Christianity  we  must 
first  consider  that  Turanian  race,  the  Bulgarians,  who,  after 


232  The  History  of  Christianity 

their  defeat  by  Belisarius,  settled  along  the  Danubian  fron- 
tier of  the  Eastern  empire.  They  give  us  an  example  of  an 
act  very  rare  in  history.  They,  although  generally  victors, 
abandoned  their  own  language  and  customs  and  adopted 
those  of  the  Slavs  among  whom  they  settled,  or  close  to  whom 
they  lived  along  the  course  of  the  lower  Danube  and  on  the 
shores  of  the  Black  Sea.  Their  Asiatic  home  was  on  the 
banks  of  the  Volga.  For  three  centuries  no  impression  was 
made  on  either  the  Bulgarians  or  the  Slavs  who  occupied 
the  northeastern  frontier  of  the  empire.  These  people 
were  still  rude,  warlike,  and  chiefly  pastoral;  alike  inacces- 
sible to  civilization  and  the  religion  of  Rome.  The  Greek 
empire  was  strangely  slack  in  its  efforts  to  spread  the  Chris- 
tian faith,  and  the  East  had  no  Pippin  or  Charlemagne  to 
compel  the  pagans  to  accept  Christianity.  The  first  estab- 
lishment of  Christianity  among  the  Biilgarians  took  place 
in  the  ninth  century.  The  sister  of  Bogoris,  the  king  of  the 
Bulgarians,  had  fallen  in  her  childhood  into  the  hands  of 
the  Greek  emperor.  She  had  been  a  captive  for  thirty 
years,  and  had  been  educated  at  Constantinpole  in  the  Chris- 
tian faith.  A  monk,  Theodosius  Cupbardo,  had  been  long 
a  bond  slave  in  Bulgaria.  To  avert  war  between  the  Bul- 
garians and  the  Eastern  empire  an  exchange  of  prisoners 
was  considered,  the  king's  sister  for  the  pious  monk.  The 
king  was  moved  by  the  pleading  of  his  sister  and  he  listened  to 
the  arguments  for  Christianity.  Meantime  a  plague  broke 
out  and  ravaged  the  country.  Bogoris  turned  to  Christ  and 
the  plague  was  quickly  stayed.  To  complete  the  work  of 
conversion  two  monks  were  sent  from  Constantinople,  sons 
of  Leo  of  Thessalonica,  distinguished  for  learning  and  zeal, 
Cyril  and  Methodius  by  name.  Cyril  was  familiar  with  the 
Greek,  Latin,  Slavonian,  Armenian,  and  Khazorian  lan- 
guages. Methodius  was  an  artist  of  great  skill  in  painting. 
These  monks  worked  zealously  for  the  conversion  of  the 
people.  The  painting  of  the  Judgment  won  their  king,  but 
did  not  influence  the  people.  The  nobles  turned  against  the 
king  and  threatened  revolution  but  the  king  finally  succeeded 
in  winning  the  people  to  Christianity.  An  appeal  was  made 
to  the  pope  and  an  effort  was  made  to  bind  Bulgaria  to 


Methodius  233 

the  papacy,  but  after  long  years  of  strife,  influenced  by  the 
emperor,  Basihus,  the  Bulgarians  attached  themselves  firmly 
to  the  Greek  church. 

Cyril  and  Methodius,  after  working  for  a  time  in  Bul- 
garia, went  on  to  Moravia.  They  reduced  the  language  of 
the  Slavs  to  writing,  conducted  the  services  of  the  church 
in  the  native  tongue  of  the  people  and  translated  the  Scrip- 
tures in  Slavic.  In  868,  Methodius  was  made  archbishop 
of  Moravia.  In  908,  the  Moravian  kingdom  was  overthrown 
by  the  Magyars,  a  horde  of  Asiatic  barbarians,  and  out  of 
its  ruins  arose  Bohemia  and  Hungary.  In  these  nations 
Christianity,  after  a  long  struggle  with  paganism,  finally 
triumphed  through  the  infl^uence  of  their  princes,  Boleslaus 
II  (967)  and  Stephen  (997-1038).  The  churches  of  these 
countries  submitted  to  Rome.  From  Bohemia  the  Gospel 
was  carried  to  Poland  where  it  became  the  state  religion 
under  the  jurisdiction  of  Rome.  Attempts  had  frequently 
been  made  by  the  Franks  to  subjugate  the  Wends  —  Slavic 
tribes  dwelling  to  the  north  and  east  of  Germany  —  and  to 
convert  them  to  Christianity,  but  all  attempts  had  failed  for 
various  reasons.  In  1047,  Gottschalk,  a  Wendish  chief,  hav- 
ing united  all  the  Slavic  tribes  under  his  rule,  rebuilt  all  the 
churches  which  had  been  destroyed  during  war,  and  en- 
deavored to  found  permanent  Christian  institutions.  But 
his  people  were  not  ready  for  such  a  change  and  they  rose 
against  him  and  he  fell  a  victim  to  his  own  zeal,  and  with 
his  death  his  people  returned  to  paganism.  War  followed 
and  they  were  nearly  exterminated  and  German  colonists 
were  settled  in  their  territory. 

While  the  conversion  of  the  Slavic  tribes  had  been  pro- 
gressing, as  given  above,  Russia  had  received  Chi'istianity 
from  the  East.  This  was  brought  about,  as  was  the  conver- 
sion of  Hungary  and  Bohemia,  by  the  action  of  their  King 
Vladimir  (988).  He  was  converted  by  the  spectacular  ac- 
count of  the  magnificence  and  impressiveness  of  the  ritual 
of  the  church  of  St.  Sophia  at  Constantinople,  given  by  his 
ambassadors  when  they  returned  from  a  political  mission. 
The  Scriptures,  as  translated  by  Cyril  and  Methodius,  were 
at  hand  and  the  king  made  use  of  these  to  impress  his  people 


234  The  History  of  Christianity 

with  their  truth.     From  this  beginning  Christianity  became 
the  state  religion  of  the  Russian  empire. 

In  the  twelfth  century  Christianity  was  carried  to  the 
Pomeranians,  a  Slavonic  tribe  closely  related  to  the  Poles, 
and  subsequently  made  tributary  to  them.  When  mission- 
aries at  first  visited  them  they  were  looked  upon  with  con- 
tempt as  they  were  clothed  in  worn  priestly  garb  and  were 
emaciated  by  fasting.  But  when,  later,  the  Bishop  of  Bem- 
berg.  Otto,  who  was  a  friend  of  the  emperor,  Henry  IV,  went 
among  them  dressed  in  liis  episcopal  robes  and  supported 
by  the  authority  of  Poland,  he  made  a  profound  impression. 
When,  in  addition  to  this,  he  manifested  a  spirit  of  unselfish 
devotion  to  the  cause  of  Christ,  the  Pomeranians  were  grad- 
ually won  over  to  the  new  faith.  As  we  come  to  the  age  of 
the  Crusades  the  war-like  spirit  was  dominant  and  the  slow 
method  of  evangelization  seemed  irksome  and  tedious.  The 
method  of  the  Turk  seemed  to  please  better.  Out  of  the 
crusading  enthusiasm  of  the  twelfth  century  there  sprang 
an  order  of  knights,  called  "  Brethren  of  the  Sword."  By 
their  military  valor  Livonia  was  subjugated  and  its  new 
bishoprics  protected.  The  population  was  compelled  to 
accept  Christianity.  Prussia  was  Christianized  in  the  same 
manner.  "  The  Teutonic  knights,"  a  military  order  which 
sprang  out  of  the  circumstances  of  the  crusades,  conquered 
the  country  and  forced  the  people  to  accept  Christianity. 
Large  portions  of  the  territory  were  confiscated  and  Ger- 
man colonists  were  settled  among  the  conquered  Slavs. 
These  intermarried  and  have  given  us  the  strange  example 
of  a  hybrid  race,  not  more  than  half  German,  setting  up  as 
preeminently  the  representative  of  the  great  German  people. 
Christianity  by  the  sword  has  not  proved  over  successful. 


FOURTH  PERIOD 


FROM  GREGORY  THE  GREAT  TO  THE  ESTAB- 
LISHMENT OF  THE  PAPAL  AUTOCRACY 
590-1250 


BOOK  VII 
THE  EMPIRE  AND  THE  PAPACY 


CHAPTER  XXXII 

THEORIES    OF    UNIVERSAL    GOVERNMENT 

IN  the  consideration  of  feudalism  in  Chapter  XXVII,  we 
found  that  form  of  government  did  not  discover  the  secret 
of  social  organization.  It  only  proved  another  vain  attempt 
of  society  to  right  itself  without  beginning  with  the  proper 
unit,  the  common  man.  It  nevertheless  made  one  move 
in  advance,  as  it  brought  the  governing  power  a  step  nearer 
and,  by  differentiation,  made  a  thousand  kings  instead  of 
one.  This  did  not  introduce  economy  in  government  and 
was,  no  doubt,  wasteful  in  the  extreme,  but  it  did  elevate 
many  men  to  participation  in  government  and  in  this  way 
made  the  political  education  of  the  masses  possible.  During 
the  prevalence  of  feudalism  we  discovered  four  elements  of 
society  in  continuous  and  irreconcilable  conflict.  These 
were  (1)  the  common  people  or  non-feudal  class,  (2)  the 
feudal  class,  (3)  the  emperor,  and  (4)  the  pope. 

The  common  people  or  non-feudal  class  was  merely  a 
survival  of  the  old  city  population  of  Rome.  When  the  bar- 
barians swarmed  over  the  Roman  frontier  and  began  their 
work  of  destruction  and  settlement,  they  shunned  the  cities 
and  took  up  their  residence  upon  the  hills  in  the  neighboring 
forests,  thus  continuing  their  lives  in  accordance  with  their 
ancient  custom.  City  life  was  entirely  new  to  them  and  they 
were  afraid  of  the  enclosing  walls  and  narrow  streets  and 
deemed  that  devils  lurked  about  in  the  dark  and  stuffy  al- 
leys. They  overthrew  the  government  and  destroyed  or 
dispossessed  the  agricultural  population,  but  they  left  those 
dwelling  in  the  cities  pretty  much  to  themselves.  The  de- 
velopment of  feudalism  affected  the  German  population  and 
brought  about  a  revolution  in  the  relationship  between  the 
old  tribal  leader  and  his  followers,  but  it  did  not  very  seri- 
ously affect  the  population  in  the  towns  and  cities.     When 


238  The  History  of  Christianity 

the  invasions  had  spent  themselves,  and  life  had  once  more 
settled  down  to  its  accustomed  channels,  the  dwellers  in  the 
towns  and  cities  came  out  of  their  hiding  places,  rebuilt  the 
breaches  in  their  walls,  and  took  up  again  their  usual  occu- 
pations. They,  robbed  of  all  agricultural  pursuits,  now 
gave  their  whole  attention  to  commerce  and  manufactures, 
supplying  the  needs  of  the  feudal  population  that  sur- 
rounded them.  Their  numbers  were  increased  from  time  to 
time  by  the  inflowing  of  the  country  dwellers,  who  grew  tired 
of  the  steadily  increasing  exactions  of  their  feudal  lords 
and  sought  refuge  among  the  artisans  of  the  towns.  The 
second  element  of  feudal  society,  the  old  German  population, 
had  settled  down  to  agricultural  pursuits,  leaving  behind 
them  their  old-time  roving  spirit.  The  war  leader  has  be- 
come a  feudal  lord  while  his  followers  have  become  villains, 
settled  upon  the  lord's  domain  and  bound  to  him  by  the 
oath  of  fealty.  This  originally  constituted  a  class  of  society 
one  step  higher  than  ordinary  citizens  or  freemen,  with  in- 
terests which  were  deemed  in  conflict  with  the  latter,  and  pro- 
tected by  contract  with  the  lord  of  the  fief,  but  as  time 
went  on  these  villains  became  degraded  by  the  growth  of 
oppression  into  a  condition  little  better  than  that  of  slav- 
ery. They  entered  into  a  struggle  for  political  independ- 
ence which  lasted  for  centuries  and  which  was  destined  finally 
to  bring  about  a  complete  revolution  in  society.  The  free 
population  of  the  cities  had  also  to  struggle  for  their  rights 
both  with  the  feudal  lords,  the  emperor,  and  the  pope. 
Their  conflict  became  merged  with  that  of  the  lower  class 
of  feudal  society  and  the  two  were  destined  to  march  on  to- 
gether to  the  winning  of  common  rights  and  privileges. 

The  emperor  and  the  pope  represented  the  widest  author- 
ity. Originally  they  represented  different  fields  of  activity, 
but  ultimately  each  claimed  to  be  the  sole  heir  to  the  im- 
perial power  of  the  Roman  empire.  Thus  a  rivalry  sprang 
up  between  them  which  finally  opened  the  way  of  escape  to 
the  common  people  from  their  lords  and  developed  the  Third 
Estate  which  was  destined,  in  the  fulness  of  time,  to  over- 
throw both  pope  and  emperor. 

In  the  centuries  which  succeeded  Charles  the  Great  two 


The  State-Church  Theory  239 

radically  antagonistic  theories  concerning  the  nature  of 
empire  were  developed.  These  two  theories  were  formed 
about  the  rival  heads  which  were  during  that  time  contend- 
ing for  control,  and  were  known  respectively  as  the  State- 
Church  and  Church-State  theories.  Briefly  outlined  these 
theories  are  as  follows : 

THE    STATE-CHURCH    THEORY 

While  this  theory  was  centuries  old  it  was  first  formally 
set  forth  by  the  poet,  Dante,  in  his  De  Monarchia  (1310- 
131'3).  In  this  work  the  poet  seeks  to  prove  from  Homer, 
Aristotle,  Juvenal,  Ovid,  Lucien,  and  the  Psalms  of  David, 
the  following  hypotheses : 

(a)  The  rule  of  the  world  belongs  of  right  to  the  Roman 
people.  He  demonstrates  this  from  the  fact  that  Rome  had 
succeeded  in  establishing  her  authority  throughout  the 
known  world  and  had  given  a  better  form  of  government 
than  any  other  nation  had  succeeded  in  forming.  But  this 
was  in  reality  God's  government  as,  from  the  very  nature  of 
the  case,  all  government  comes  from  Him. 

(b)  The  emperor,  Augustus,  as  heir  of  the  Roman  people, 
and  their  legitimate  representative,  ruled  by  reason  of  this 
divine  right.  Dante  claimed  that  such  an  empire  as  this 
was  indispensable  to  the  welfare  of  human  society  and  that 
the  authority  which  it  made  use  of  was  directly  from  God, 
and  not  derived  in  any  way  whatever  from  the  pope.  It 
was  the  one  responsible  mediator  of  the  corporate  interests 
of  humanity,  itself  a  revelation  of  the  divine  spirit.  The 
church  was  merely  the  imperial  organ  for  moral  and  spirit- 
ual work.  The  empire  was  conceived  of  as  incapable  of 
cessation  and  as  unbroken  from  Augustus.  It,  therefore, 
antedated  Christianity  and  took  it  up  unto  itself. 

(c)  When  the  Western  empire  fell,  this  divine  right  to 
rule  was  vested  in  the  emperors  of  the  East,  they  being  the 
legal  representatives  of  Augustus. 

(d)  When  Irene  usurped  the  power  which  legally  belonged 
to  her  son,  the  right  to  rule  again  vested  in  the  populus 
Romanus.     This  necessarily  carried  the  seat  of  government 


240  The  History  of  Christianity 

back  again  to  Rome,  which  had  lost  its  preeminent  position 
when  Constantine  established  his  capital  at  Constantinople. 

(e)  This  divine  right  to  rule  passed  to  Charles  the  Great 
through  the  medium  of  the  pope  who  for  the  time  represented 
the  populus  Romanus,  he  being  elected  by  that  body  and  so 
exercising  merely  delegated  authority. 

(f)  When  the  Carolingian  line  failed,  this  right  again 
passed  back  to  the  poptdus  Romamis  where  it  belonged,  and 
where  it  remained  till,  through  the  mediation  of  the  pope, 
Otto  the  Great  received  it  in  962.  It  thus  continued  to  rest 
in  the  German  emperors  until  the  time  when  Dante  wrote. 

THE    CHURCH-STATE    OR    PAPAL,    THEORY 

This  theory  was  originated  or  at  least  fully  developed  by 
Augustine,  in  his  City  of  God.  Thence  it  worked  its  way 
to  the  sub-consciousness  of  the  church  and  afterwards  found 
a  place  in  the  formulae  of  the  canon  law.  Augustine's  the- 
ory was  the  exact  reverse  of  the  one  set  forth  by  Dante. 
It  made  the  church  supreme,  God's  sole  institute  and  agent 
for  working  human  welfare.  The  state  was  merely  its  func- 
tionary and  made  use  of  as  a  noble  instrument.  And  yet 
it  was  impossible  for  the  empire  to  be  anything  else  than  de- 
graded, in  practice,  by  the  prevalence  of  such  a  theory. 
Innocent  III  (1198-1216)  set  forth  this  latter  theory  in  a 
terse  and  classic  form  in  the  following  words :  "  The  Cre- 
ator has  fixed  in  the  firmament  of  the  church  universal  two 
dignitaries.  The  greater,  the  papacy,  governs  souls  as  the 
sun  by  day.  The  less,  the  empire,  governs  bodies  as  the 
moon  by  night."  The  theory  which  was  thus  admirably 
voiced  by  Innocent  was  very  much  strengthened  by  the  issue 
of  the  Pseudo-Isadorian  Decretals  (840-860),  a  collection 
of  Apostolic  Canons,  spurious  decretals  of  the  popes  from 
Clement  I  to  Melchiades,  arranged  in  chronological  order, 
with  brief  regulations  regarding  processes  against  bishops. 
These  were  arranged  and  published  by  an  ecclesiastic  of 
southern  France.  It  was  at  first  supposed  that  this  com- 
pilation was  produced  to  favor  the  pope.  Investigation, 
however,  shows  that  it  was  in  favor  of  the  bishops  and  was 


These  Theories  Conflict  Ml 

doubtless  prepared  to  protect  them  from  the  oppression  of 
temporal  princes  and  the  restraining  acts  of  ecclesiastical 
councils.  The  authorities  here  collected  supported  the  right 
of  an  appeal  to  the  pope  in  every  process  where  a  bishop 
was  concerned,  and  to  make  the  permission  of  the  pope  a 
necessary  preliminary  to  the  summoning  of  a  provincial  ec- 
clesiastical council.  As  between  pope  and  king,  or  pope  and 
emperor,  these  decretals  threw  the  weight  of  their  authority 
on  the  side  of  the  pope. 

With  the  radical  difference  as  to  theories  of  function  set 
forth  above,  no  sane  person  would  look  for  long-continued 
harmony  of  action  between  these  two  powers.  The  question 
which  had  to  be  settled  was :  "  WTio  shall  remain  master 
of  the  Avorld,  the  heir  of  St.  Paul,  or  the  heir  of  Augustus 
and  Charles  the  Great.''  "  The  struggle  for  mastery  be- 
tween these  two  rival  authorities  lasts  through  two  stormy 
centuries  and  is  naturally  divided  into  three  parts  or  acts : 
(1)  The  War  of  Investitures;  (2)  The  Revolt  of  the  Italian 
States;  and  (3)  The  Triumph  of  the  Papac3\ 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 


THE    WAR    OF    INVESTITURES 


THE  coronation  of  Charles  the  Great  was  not  per- 
formed in  accordance  with  any  ancient  precedent  or 
legal  right,  but  was  justified  by  the  circumstances  of  the  mo- 
ment and  the  unanimous  action  of  all  those  concerned  in  it. 
The  purposes  of  both  empire  and  church  were  being  carried 
out  in  equal  degree.  The  precise  relations  existing  between 
pope  and  emperor  were  never  defined,  but  it  is  certain  that 
Charles  would  never  have  admitted  the  extravagant  claims 
that  the  popes  subsequently  set  up.  He  was  always  certain 
that  his  power  was  supreme  in  both  state  and  church  and 
throughout  his  life  he  acted  upon  that  hypothesis.  Of  the 
two  powers  that  swayed  Christendom  he  was  without  any 
doubt  the  greater,  and  his  will  was  everywhere  supreme. 
The  councils  which  were  summoned  throughout  his  vast  em- 
pire were  ecclesiastical  synods  no  less  than  national  diets, 
and  he  legislated  for  both  church  and  state  with  equal  abso- 
lutism. So  long  as  he  lived  the  influence  of  his  masterful 
mind  was  everywhere  felt.  When  he  died  and  his  empire  was 
partitioned  among  his  sons  a  change  was  inevitable,  but  it 
came  slowly.  Louis,  the  weak  but  pious  son  of  the  great 
emperor,  had  been  upon  the  throne  for  sixteen  years  before 
the  break  actually  came.  The  later  Carolingians  caused  the 
empire  to  become  a  mere  legal  fiction.  Its  crown  was  some- 
times worn  by  a  lord  of  the  West  Franks  and  sometimes  by 
a  lord  of  the  East  Franks,  while  its  power  was  never  greater 
than  the  personal  prowess  of  its  wearer.  That  vast  empire 
that  had  been  built  with  so  much  energy  and  wisdom  was 
divided  up  among  the  sons  and  grandsons  of  Louis,  and  the 
century  was  filled  with  strife  between  these  and  their  descend- 
ants.    Internally    the    empire    was    harassed    by    incessant 

struggles  between   rival  kings,  dukes,  bishops,   and  abbots, 

242 


Tendencies  in  the  Empire  24?3 

each  striving  to  increase  his  own  power  at  the  expense  of 
another.  Disruption  and  decay  were  discoverable  on 
every  side,  but  were  more  pronounced  in  Italy  than  north 
of  the  Alps.  This  fair  land  was  broken  up  into  innumer- 
able lordships  which  were  continually  at  war  with  one  an- 
other. The  city  of  Rome  was  ruled,  sometimes  by  a  pope, 
sometimes  by  the  people,  but  more  often  by  some  fierce  nobles 
of  the  neighborhood  who  took  upon  themselves  the  titles  of 
consuls  and  patricians.  Each  one  of  these  warring  powers 
struggled  in  turn  for  the  prize  of  the  crown  of  Lombardy. 

The  direct  line  of  Charles  the  Great  in  Germany  came  to 
an  end  in  911,  and  the  old  elective  principle  which  had  held 
from  the  first  among  the  Germans,  now  came  to  the  front 
and  Conrad  of  Franconia  was  chosen  as  king,  and  after  him, 
Henry  of  Saxony,  the  father  of  Otto  I.  Otto  was  by  far 
the  ablest  king  who  had  arisen  in  Germany  since  Charles 
the  Great.  He  quickly  suppressed  disorder  and  rebellion 
throughout  his  kingdom,  and  then  gave  his  attention  to  the 
barbarian  invaders  that  threatened  from  the  east.  He  over- 
threw the  Magyars  in  the  bloody  battle  of  the  Lichfeld  and 
conquered  the  remnants  of  Lombard  power  in  northern 
Italy.  Having  thus  completed  the  overthrow  of  threaten- 
ing enemies  from  without,  and  consolidated  his  kingdom  by 
crushing  internal  opposition,  he  accepted  the  invitation  of 
Pope  John  XII  and,  in  962,  visited  the  city  of  Rome.  Here 
he  freed  the  city  from  the  tyranny  of  nobles  and  as  a  reward 
for  his  services  had  bestowed  upon  him  the  imperial  crown 
which  had  been  held  in  abeyance  since  the  last  of  the  Caro- 
lingian  line  had  passed  into  the  grave.  Again  was  that  bond 
between  Germany  and  Italy  which  had  been  established  by 
Pippin  and  Charles  made  fast  by  Otto.  By  this  act  the 
independence  of  Italy  was  indefinitely  postponed  and  the 
Holy  Roman  Empire  established.  This  was  to  represent  in 
purely  German  hands  the  sway  of  the  great  Augustus,  and 
the  whole  Christian  world  was  to  be  henceforth  theoretically 
subject  to  it.  Otto  the  Great  ruled  with  as  much  vigor  in 
Italy  as  he  did  in  his  possessions  beyond  the  Alps.  He  also 
asserted  his  authority  in  the  church  with  as  much  assurance 
as  did  Charles  the  Great.     He  overthrew  the  rebellious  Ital- 


244  The  History  of  Christianity 

ian  lords.  He  deposed  John  XII,  who  had  invited  him  to 
Rome,  and  placed  the  papal  crown  on  the  head  of  Leo  VIII 
in  his  stead.  He  made  the  Roman  people  swear  to  elect  no 
pontiff  in  the  future  whom  he  had  not  first  approved.  He 
thus  went  far  toward  the  establishment  of  the  principles  for 
which  Charles  the  Great  had  contended.  Otto  III  followed 
in  the  footsteps  of  his  renowned  grandsire  and  controlled 
the  church  with  a  high  hand.  As  he  was  unable  to  find  Ital- 
ians who  were  fitted  to  occupy  the  papal  chair,  by  reason 
of  their  licentiousness  and  ignorance,  he  nominated  Germans 
to  the  Holy  See.  He  first  nominated  Bruno,  his  kinsman, 
to  that  office.  Bruno  took  the  title  of  Gregory  V  and  gave 
promise  of  being  a  most  worthy  pope,  but  died  soon  after 
assuming  office.  Otto  next  nominated  the  pious,  eloquent 
and  learned  Gerbert,  who  assumed  the  title  of  Sylvester  II. 
Otto  III  dreamed  once  more  of  making  Rome  the  imperial 
capital,  but  all  his  wonderful  plans  were  cut  short  by  his 
untimely  death  at  the  early  age  of  twenty-two.  Thus  the 
direct  line  of  the  Ottos  came  to  an  end  in  1002.  He  was  fol- 
lowed by  Henry  II  (1002-1004.)  and  Conrad  II  (1024- 
1034),  but  these  kings  were  compelled  to  give  their  time  to 
the  settling  of  difficulties  in  Germany,  and  so  left  Italy  and 
Rome  to  themselves.  Henry  II  had  great  plans  for  reform- 
ing the  church  and  strengthening  the  empire  in  every  direc- 
tion, but  they  were  never  carried  out  by  reason  of  his  early 
death.  During  the  reign  of  Henry  and  that  of  his  suc- 
cessor, Conrad,  the  popes  were  usually  nominated,  not  by 
the  emperor,  as  was  the  case  with  Charles  the  Great  and 
Otto,  but  by  the  counts  of  Tusculum,  who  sold  the  dignity 
to  the  highest  bidder,  and  as  a  consequence  the  church  sank 
into  the  lowest  depths  of  ignominy  and  corruption.  Henry 
III  strengthened  the  imperial  claim  to  the  authority  in  both 
church  and  state,  but  he  died  in  1056  when  yet  a  young 
man  and  scarcely  at  the  height  of  his  power,  leaving  his  work 
all  unfinished.  Pope  Victor  II,  who  had  been  nominated 
to  the  office  by  Henry,  and  who  himself  was  a  German,  was 
appointed  guardian  of  Henry's  infant  son  and  administrator 
of  the  empire.  Victor  was  a  champion  of  the  State-Church 
theory   and    there    appeared   some  danger   of  the   complete 


T^dencies  in  the  Church 

absorption  of  the  papacy  by  the  empire,  when  the  pope 
suddenly  died  only  one  year  after  his  friend  and  patron. 
Now  it  was  that  the  political  disintegration  of  the  empire 
set  in  and  went  on  apace  during  the  long  minority  of  Henry 
IV. 

The  church,  adopting  the  views  which  were  partially  de- 
veloped by  Augustine,  taught  that  God  designed  to  found  a 
Kingdom  of  Heaven  upon  earth,  and  that  governments  were 
usurpations  unless  they  were  subordinate  to  this  main  pur- 
pose  of   creation.      This   teachizig   seemed   harmless   enough 
and,  indeed,  had  much  of  truth  within  it,  but  as  the  centuries 
went  by  "  the  hierarchy  became  more  and  more  convinced 
that  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  on  earth  meant  the  Kingdom 
of   the    Pope."     Feudalism    had,    however,    demoralized   the 
church  beyond  the  hope  of  enforcing  any  such  belief  upon 
the  world  by  absorbing  it  into  its  own  decentrahzing  system. 
Finally  one-fifth  of  France  was  held  by  the  church  in  feudal 
tenure.     One-third  of  Germany  was  held  by  it  in  the  same 
way.     These  territories  were  ruled  by  archbishops,  bishops, 
and  abbots,  who  had  become  invested  with  the  rights  of  dukes 
and  counts,  and  exercised  these  rights  as  suzerains  or  over- 
lords over  the  entire  population.     But  for  them  to  exercise 
these  rights  and  privileges  they  must  first  be  invested  with 
them  as  proprietors  of  the  fief  to  which  these  were  attached. 
This  investiture  depended  wholly  upon  their  taking  the  oath 
of  fealty  to  the  secular  lord  or  king.      In  this  way  through 
the  instrumentality  of  feudalism,  the  emperor  became  over- 
lord of  all  ecclesiastics  whom  he  invested,  not  only  in  the 
ordinary  manner  as  his  vassals,  but  also  with  ring  and  staff, 
the  emblems  of  their  spiritual  office.     As  time  went  by  the 
worldly  wealth  and  influence  of  the  clergy  increased,  while 
the  prelates  became  feudal  beneficiaries.      They  disobeyed  the 
old  imperial  laws  which  forbade  the  clergy  engaging  in  mili- 
tary  occupations,   and  rode  to  war  with  all   the  pomp  of 
military  chieftains.     Rich  bishoprics  and  abbeys  became  the 
objects  of  ambition  to  greedy  competitors,  and  the  king  or 
the  emperor  was  frequently  tempted,  for  sersice  or  money, 
to   bestow   these   upon   unworthy   candidates.     In   this   way 
ambitious  and  unscrupulous  men,  ignorant  of  the  teachings 


246  The  History  of  Christianity 

of  the  Bible  and  the  services  of  the  church,  became  bishops 
and  abbots,  and,  as  such,  though  not  knowing  how  to  read, 
were  influential  in  the  councils  of  the  church.  At  this  time 
the  clergy  were  very  generally  married  and  there  was  a  tend- 
ency to  transmit  clerical  benefices  to  some  of  the  clergymen, 
in  this  manner  creating  an  ecclesiastical  aristocracy  or  caste, 
which  resented  the  elevation  of  men  of  humble  birth  and 
tended  preeminently  to  alienate  church  property.  Had  this 
continued  unabated  it  would  have  resulted  in  the  complete 
localization  of  the  clergy  and  the  divisions  of  the  church 
would  have  followed  the  divisions  of  the  empire  and  the  cen- 
tralizing influence  of  the  papacy  would  have  been  completely 
broken  down.  This  secularization  of  the  clergy  prevailed 
for  more  than  two  hundred  years  and  was  the  chief  weaken- 
ing power  in  the  north.  The  church  had  become  more  de- 
moralized in  Italy  than  it  had  in  Germany  and  France. 
Here  the  lust  for  money  and  power,  concubinage,  and  simony 
were  universal,  and  the  papacy  itself  was  carried  away  by 
the  general  corruption.  Pope  Nicholas  I  (858-876)  had 
carried  the  papal  claims  to  the  highest  point  that  they  had 
thus  far  reached,  and  in  bringing  this  about  had  made  use, 
for  the  first  time,  of  the  famous  False  Decretals  of  Isador. 
He  sternly  prohibited  the  divorce  of  King  Lothair  from  his 
queen,  again  assumed  authority  over  the  prelates  of  Ger- 
many and  Gaul  that  had  been  yielded  by  some  of  his  prede- 
cessors, and  forced  recognition  of  the  papal  supremacy. 
But  this  high  plane  of  authority  was  not  maintained  save 
for  a  brief  period,  and  was  followed  by  a  century  of  weak- 
ness and  darkness  that  was  almost  profound.  During  this 
period  the  papal  throne  was  won  by  every  species  of  violence 
and  intrigue.  For  fifty  years  it  was  practically  owned  and 
controlled  by  three  profligate  women  who  formed  a  league 
with  the  licentious  nobles  of  Tusculum  and  plundered  the 
church  far  and  near.  These  nobles  finally  brought  the 
papacy  to  its  lowest  depths  of  degradation  by  seating  a 
twelve-year-old  boy  on  its  throne  with  the  title  of  Benedict 
IX.  As  he  grew  to  manhood,  Benedict  led  a  life  of  the  most 
shameful  depravity,  turning  the  Vatican  into  a  den  of 
thieves   and  prostitutes.     Bands  of  cut-throats  roamed  the 


Attempts  at  Reform  247 

streets  of  the  city  and  pillaged  pilgrims  who  came  to  the 
holy  sanctuary,  dividing  their  ill-gotten  gains  with  the  pope 
in  return  for  his  protection.  Benedict  finally  grew  tired  of 
playing  pope  and  wished  to  reform  and  marry  his  cousin. 
After  having  squandered  the  vast  revenues  of  the  church  in 
shameful  practices  he  finally  sold  the  office  to  the  arch- 
presbyter,  John  Gratian,  a  man  of  immense  wealth,  but  up- 
right character,  who  assumed  the  title  of  Gregory  VI.  Con- 
trary to  the  rules  of  the  church  a  vast  number  of  the  priests 
were  married  and  openly  defied  their  superiors  to  discipline 
them.  Corruption  was  so  far-reaching  and  powerful,  with  a 
profligate  pope  at  the  head  of  the  system,  that  the  enforce- 
ment of  the  rules  of  the  church  was  impossible. 

The  church,  however,  had  not  lost  all  sense  of  decency  and 
righteousness.  Occasionally  strenuous  efforts  to  reform 
were  put  forth,  but  these  for  the  most  part  came  from  with- 
out. Thus  Otto  the  Great  took  up  the  task  and  deposed 
John  XII  for  simony  and  gross  malfeasance  in  office,  but  it 
was  Henry  III  who  recognized  the  imperative  duty  of  a  far- 
reaching  reformation.  He  was  a  thoroughly  upright  and 
religious  sovereign  \('ho  strove  to  check  simony  and  other 
corruptions  in  the  church.  When  Benedict  IX  sold  the 
papacy  to  John  Gratian,  the  new  pope  went  to  work  with 
energy  to  reform  its  worst  evils.  He  was  a  man  of  personal 
purit}^  who,  prior  to  his  elevation  to  the  papac}^  had  be- 
longed to  a  party  of  reformers  in  Rome  who  were  disciples 
of  the  school  of  Cluny.  He  claimed  that  he  had  purchased 
the  papacy  from  Benedict  with  the  sole  purpose  of  bringing 
about  needed  reforms  and  his  actions  bore  out  his  words. 
He  built  and  repaired  churches  from  his  private  revenues 
and  put  a  stop  to  the  plundering  and  robbery  that  was  giv- 
ing to  the  saci'ed  city  the  name  of  "  a  den  of  robbers  and 
murderers."  He  further  restored  the  property  of  the  holy 
see  which  had  been  lost  M^  means  of  violence  and  fraud.  But 
these  reforms  did  not  suit  the  rapacious  appetites  of  the 
Tusculum  nobles  who  had  been  the  chief  beneficiaries  of  the 
old  rapacity.  They  brought  back  the  profligate  Benedict 
IX,  who  had  by  now  gotten  away  with  the  purchase  price, 
on  the  ground  of  the  illegality  of  the  sale  and  the  imjjossi- 


248  The  History  of  Christianity 

bility  of  Benedict  divesting  himself  of  the  sacred  office  in 
any  such  way.  Previous  to  the  sale  a  faction  had  arisen  in 
the  city  which  drove  Benedict  out  and  set  up  a  new  pope 
under  the  name  of  Sylvester  III.  With  the  return  of  Bene- 
dict there  appeared  three  claimants  for  the  papacy,  each  one 
occupying  a  portion  of  the  city :  Benedict  held  the  Lateran ; 
Gregory,  Ste.  INIaria ;  and  Sylvester,  St.  Peter's.  At  last 
the  scandal  and  confusion  of  all  this  became  intolerable  and 
Henry  III  was  appealed  to.  He  immediately  set  out  for 
Rome,  crossing  the  Alps  and  entering  Pavia  on  October  25th, 
1046.  Here  he  was  received  with  great  honor  by  the  Mar- 
quis of  Tuscany  and  other  nobles.  He  immediately  issued  a 
summons  for  a  great  synod  to  be  held  at  Sutri,  a  small  city 
some  thirty  miles  to  the  north  of  Rome.  Here  Gregory  pre- 
sided and  the  claim  of  Sylvester  was  immediately  taken  up 
and  passed  upon.  He  was  convicted  of  simony,  deposed 
from  the  papacy,  degraded  from  the  priesthood,  and  con- 
demned to  retire  into  a  monastery.  Gregory,  without  await- 
ing a  formal  accusation,  acknowledged  with  frankness  that 
he  had  purchased  the  papal  throne  from  Benedict  and  was 
unfit  for  the  office.  But  he  pleaded,  in  partial  extenuation, 
that  he  had  purchased  the  office  only  to  reform  it  and  for 
the  best  welfare  of  the  church.  Claiming  that  his  con- 
science now  troubled  him,  he  tore  off  the  pontifical  robes,  and 
descended  from  the  chair.  This  self-condemnation  was  im- 
mediately ratified  by  the  council.  Benedict  was  summoned 
to  Sutri  but  he  did  not  see  fit  to  obe^^  Heni'v,  therefore, 
immediately  proceeded  to  Rome  where  he  entered  without 
any  opposition  and  summoned  a  second  synod  to  be  held  at 
St.  Peter's  in  December.  Benedict  IX  was  now  formally  de- 
posed from  the  high  office  and  the  capital  of  Christendom 
purged  of  all  pretenders  and  the  throne  of  St.  Peter  left 
vacant.  Henry  III  was  a  disciple  of  the  doctrine  of  thor- 
oughness and  believed  that  the  right  place  to  begin  the 
reformation  of  the  church  was  at  its  head.  He  despaired 
of  being  able  to  find  an  Italian  clergyman  fit  for  the  papal 
office  because  of  the  degeneracy  of  all  Italy.  He,  therefore, 
nominated  Suidgar,  bishop  of  Bamberg,  a  German  prelate  of 
unblemished  life  and  unquestioned  piety,  to  the  exalted  posi- 


Attempts  at  Reform  24«9 

tion.  But  that  prelate  did  not  wish  to  desert  his  bishopric 
for  the  higher  duties  and  responsibilities  of  the  Roman  see, 
and  was  only  reluctantly  persuaded  by  the  insistence  of 
Henry  who  led  him  to  the  papal  chair  amid  the  acclamations 
of  the  entire  people.  Suidgar  took  the  title  of  Clement  II 
and  immediately  took  up  the  task  of  reformation  to  which 
he  was  pledged.  "  Those  who  were  convicted  of  buying  or 
selling  sacred  offices  were  to  be  punished  with  excommunica- 
tion ;  clerics  who  had  been  ordained  by  bishops  whom  they 
knew  to  be  simonical  were  to  be  subjected  to  penance  and 
suspended  from  office  for  forty  days."  These  were  the  de- 
crees which  were  enacted  by  a  synod  held  in  January,  10-17. 
Henry  was  called  back  to  Germany  by  a  rebellion  which 
had  broken  out  north  of  the  Alps  under  the  leadership  of 
Godfrey,  Duke  of  Lotharingia.  While  Henry  was  engaged 
in  putting  down  the  rebellion  news  was  brought  to  him  of 
the  death  of  Clement,  who  died  October  9th,  1047,  only  a 
year  after  his  elevation.  Henry  nominated  Beppo,  bishop  of 
Brixen  and  a  native  of  Bavaria,  to  the  vacant  seat,  and 
directed  Boniface,  marquis  of  Tuscany,  to  conduct  the  can- 
didate to  Rome  where  he  was  consecrated  in  St.  Peter's  on 
July  17th,  1048,  under  the  title  of  Damasus  II.  But  he 
could  not  endure  the  heat  of  Rome  and  died  within  a  month 
of  his  coronation.  Henry  was  once  more  called  upon  to  fill 
the  vacancy  and  this  time  he  nominated  Bruno,  bishop  of 
Toiil,  for  the  position.  He  could  not  have  found  a  better 
man  had  he  spent  a  year  in  the  search.  After  three  days 
spent  in  fasting  and  prayer,  Bruno  finally  yielded  a  reluc- 
tant consent,  but  he  made  one  stipulation,  that  the  emperor's 
choice  should  be  ratified  by  the  free  choice  of  the  Roman 
clergy  and  people.  Until  this  had  been  secured  he  utterly 
refused  to  assume  the  pontifical  state.  He  spent  two  months 
on  the  journey  from  Worms  where  he  was  when  the  emperor 
nominated  him  to  Rome.  On  the  way  the  waters  of  the  riv- 
ers receded  before  him  as  did  that  of  the  Red  Sea  before  the 
children  of  Israel,  and  when  he  prayed  voices  of  angels  were 
heard  to  make  answer  and  many  and  various  were  the  mira- 
cles performed  by  him.  He  walked  barefooted  to  the  gate 
of  the  city  and  asked  the  Romans  if  they  would  receive  hira 


250  The  History  of  Christianity 

in  the  name  of  Christ.  When  he  reached  St.  Peter's,  he  de- 
clared as  he  did  upon  setting  out,  that  he  would  return  to 
his  bishopric  unless  he  should  receive  the  dignity  of  the 
papacy  by  the  unanimous  voice  of  the  people.  On  the  12th 
day  of  February,  1049,  he  was  enthroned  as  Leo  IX,  the 
decree  of  his  election  having  been  drawn  up  in  the  name  of 
the  clergy  and  the  people. 

Like  his  predecessor,  Leo  was  committed  to  the  work  of 
reform.  His  task  was  a  gigantic  one,  however,  possibly  only 
half  realized  by  him  when  he  assumed  the  office.  In  spite  of 
all  the  efforts  at  reform  made  by  Otto  the  Great  and  Henry 
III,  as  well  as  all  the  popes  who  preceded  Leo,  the  life  and 
habits  of  the  clergy  were  unspeakably  vile.  The  monstrous 
wickedness  of  Pope  John  XII  and  Benedict  IX  was  by  no 
means  uncommon  among  the  clergymen.  They  have  been 
chosen  simply  because  of  their  prominence.  Social  purity 
was  almost  unknown,  and  simony,  which  according  to  ecclesi- 
astical law  is  the  greatest  of  all  crimes,  was  nearly  universal. 
This  name  was  derived  from  the  story  of  Simon  Magus,  in 
the  8th  chapter  of  Acts.  He  it  was  who  offered  money  to 
the  apostles  for  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  The  laying  on 
of  hands  of  the  bishop  was  supposed  to  impart  the  holy 
spirit,  and,  consequently,  the  buying  and  selling  of  ordina- 
tion to  any  office  in  the  church  was  regarded  as  simony.  In 
the  course  of  time  this  term  was  extended  to  cover  traffic  in 
ecclesiastical  affairs  and  in  the  rights  of  ecclesiastical  pat- 
ronage, and  to  the  purchase  of  admission  to  monastic  orders. 
Primitive  usage  required  a  candidate  for  an  episcopal  va- 
cancy to  be  elected  by  the  clergy  and  people  of  the  diocese 
and  that  election  to  be  approved  by  the  metropolitan  bishop 
and  his  assistants.  Charles  the  Great  and  his  successors  con- 
ferred bishoprics  by  direct  nomination  or  by  commendatory 
letters  to  the  electors  who  were  not  deemed  sufficiently  inde- 
pendent to  depart  from  the  choice  thus  indicated  by  the  em- 
peror. Later  it  became  customary  to  grant  the  honors  and 
estates  of  a  see  only  upon  liberal  payments  on  the  part  of 
the  recipients.  The  power  of  the  nomination  and  investiture 
in  this  way  became  an  instrument  of  the  grossest  rapacity, 
and  church  offices  were  bestowed  upon  the  highest  bidder  with- 


'Attempts  at  Reform  251 

out  regard  to  character.  Leo  also  had  a  great  problem  in 
the  domestic  relations  of  the  clergy.  From  the  first  celibacy 
had  been  enjoined  upon  the  western  clergy,  but  the  prohibi- 
tion of  marriage  was  confined  to  the  simple  letter  of  the  canon 
law.  The  secular  clergy  kept  women  in  their  houses  in  the 
relation  of  the  Roman  law,  and  paid  a  tax  called  cullagium 
for  the  privilege.  The  early  church  fathers  did  not  forbid 
marriage,  but  recommended  celibacy  as  a  matter  of  choice. 
At  the  close  of  the  third  century  bishops  and  abbots  were 
permitted  to  retain  wives  whom  they  had  married  before  or- 
dination, but  not  to  marry  after  they  were  in  orders.  The 
first  absolute  command  to  the  higher  clergy  to  observe  celi- 
bacy was  in  the  decretal  of  Pope  Siricus,  in  385,  which  ap- 
plied to  bishops,  priests  and  deacons.  The  reforms  under- 
taken by  the  Carolingians  accomplished  but  little.  The 
enlarged  power  of  the  papacy  only  added  to  the  increasing 
license  of  the  times.  At  last  the  policy  of  the  papac}'  de- 
manded, as  a  matter  of  self-preservation,  that  the  priesthood 
should  be  bound  absolutely  to  itself,  and  that  the  sacerdotal 
order  should  be  separated  from  the  rest  of  society,  and  from 
common  sympathies,  interests  and  affections.  The  marriage 
of  priests  had  become  so  common  in  the  tenth  century  that 
Routharis,  an  Italian  bishop,  declared  that  all  his  clergy 
were  married  and  that  if  he  were  to  enforce  the  canon  pro- 
hibiting marriage  none  but  boys  would  be  left  in  the  church. 
Leo  decided  to  cut  asunder  the  domestic  tie  and  remove  from 
holy  orders  all  persons  who  persisted  in  keeping  wives.  To 
accomplish  his  reforms  he  summoned  a  council  at  Rheims,  in 
1049.  One  of  its  first  acts  was  to  declare  that  "  The  pope 
alone  had  the  right  to  be  called  the  Apostolic  Primate  of  the 
Church  Universal."  Twelve  canons  were  passed  for  the  bet- 
ter ordering  of  the  church.  "  These  canons  forbade  simony, 
and  enjoined  freedom  of  election  by  clergy  and  people  to 
ecclesiastical  offices ;  the  clergy  were  forbidden  to  marry  or 
to  bear  arms,  or  take  any  fees  for  burials,  baptism,  the  ad- 
ministration of  the  eucharist,  or  visitation  of  the  sick.  The 
practice  of  usury,  the  plundering  of  the  poor  and  of  pilgrims, 
and  marriage  within  the  prohibited  degrees  were  all  forbid- 
den." 


252  The  History  of  Christianity 

Leo  consumed  his  time  in  efforts  at  reform  and  constant 
journeys  between  Italy  and  Germany.  He  was  wise  in  the 
choice  of  his  advisers,  surrounding  himself  with  able  men  who 
were  in  hearty  sympathy  with  his  plans,  and  were  of  a  tem- 
per kindred  to  his  own.  Prominent  among  these  was  Peter 
Damiani,  abbot  of  Fontanella  in  Umbria,  "  a  man  who  com- 
bined the  superstitiousness  of  his  age  and  order  with  liberal 
education,  trained  amid  the  austerities  of  a  hermit's  life, 
unpractical  and  timid  in  his  dealings  with  men,  but  candid, 
pure  in  morals,  inspired  with  horror  and  detestation  of  the 
foul  abominations  of  monastic  and  clerical  life,  and  portray- 
ing them  in  terms  which,  if  not  choice  or  classical,  were  un- 
mistakable." Along  with  him  was  Hildebrand,  whom  the 
pope  had  already  made  sub-deacon,  and  soon  afterwards  ap- 
pointed superior  of  the  monastery  of  St.  Paul.  This  man 
was  indeed  already  the  inspiring  spirit  of  the  time.  As  soon 
as  the  council  at  Rheims  had  completed  its  work  the  pope 
turned  his  attention  to  the  political  conditions  of  the  state. 
This  move  on  his  part  brought  him  into  immediate  conflict 
with  the  Lombard  and  Norman  nobles  in  the  south  of  Italy. 
In  1016,  the  city  of  Salerno  was  saved  from  destruction  by 
a  Saracen  fleet  by  a  small  band  of  Normans  on  their  way 
home  from  a  pilgrimage  to  Palestine.  These  sea-rovers  fell 
in  love  with  this  south-land  and  from  this  time  on  a  stream 
of  Norman  adventurers  flowed  into  southern  Italy.  It  was 
but  a  part  of  the  great  movement  of  the  Northmen  from 
Scandinavia  and  the  Danish  peninsula  which  took  place  in 
the  ninth  and  tenth  centuries.  Bands  of  these  hardy  war- 
riors had  settled  in  France,  Ireland,  England,  and  Russia. 
Those  passing  to  the  south  took  part  with  the  Greeks  in  a 
struggle  with  the  Saracens  for  the  possession  of  Sicily,  in 
1039,  but  as  their  services  were  but  poorly  requited  they 
gave  their  attention  to  the  conquest  of  Apulia  in  their  own 
behalf.  They  were  able  to  conquer  both  Apulia  and  Cala- 
bria in  short  order  and  took  and  fortified  the  town  of  Aversa. 
Their  title  to  this  territory  was  made  good  by  a  grant  from 
the  duke  of  Naples,  in  1029,  to  their  leader,  Robert  Guis- 
card.  Guiscard  entered  into  an  alliance  with  the  Lom- 
bard princes  about  him  and  immediately  became  a  menace  to 


Attempts  at  'Reform  253 

both  the  papacy   and  the  empire.     Guiscard   succeeded  in 
establishing   a   strong  power  which  Henry   III   recognized, 
giving  him  also  a  portion  of  Benevento.     When  Leo  turned 
his  attention  to  the  political  problems  of  Italy,  the  Norman 
princes  were  ruling  respectively   at  Salerno,  Calabria,  and 
Benevento.     Leo    thought   that    Benevento   legitimately   be- 
longed to  the  church,  and  upheld  the  people  in  disregarding 
both  Norman  and  Lombard  claims  and  placing  themselves  in 
his   protection.     He   appointed  two   princes   to   rule  in  his 
name,  but  the  Normans  slew  these  and  resumed  the  govern- 
ment.    The  pope  now  appealed  to  the  German  emperor  for 
aid  to  make  good  his  claim  against  the  Normans.      He  was, 
however,  only  able  to  secure  a  few  hundred  mercenaries  under 
the  command  of  Godfrev  of  Lorraine  and  his  brother  Fred- 
eric.    The  pope  placed' himself  at  the  head  of  these  forces 
and  marched  against  the  Normans,  in  the  meantime  excom- 
municating   them.     The    Normans    joined    battle    with   the 
pope's  troops  near  a  little  town  called  Dragonata  on  the 
bank  of  the  river  Fertoris,  and  utterly  destroyed  them,  taking 
the  pope  a  prisoner.     But  the  Normans,  though  barbarians, 
were  good  churchmen  and  treated  the  pope  with  great  con- 
sideration.    They  finally  released  him  upon  the  receipt  of  a 
great  ransom   and  their  investiture  with  the  territories  of 
Apulia,  Calabria  and  Sicily  as  fiefs  of  the  papacy.     After  an 
absence  of  nine  months  in  an  honorable  captivity  in  Bene- 
vento Leo  returned  to  Rome  much  weakened  by  sickness  and 
humiliation  over  his  defeat.     He  died  upon  the  13th  day  of 
April,  1054,  in  the  fiftieth  year  of  his  age. 

The  death  of  Leo  IX  was  a  very  critical  period  in  the 
history  of  both  papacy  and  empire.  After  careful  consid- 
eration and  a  vain  effort  to  convince  Hildebrand  that  it  was 
his  duty  to  accept  the  nomination,  Gebhard,  the  bishop  of 
Eichstadt,  who  w^as  one  of  the  wealthiest  and  ablest  German 
prelates,  was  elevated  to  the  honor  of  the  Roman  see,  and 
inaugurated  at  Rome  on  the  13th  day  of  April,  1055,  just 
one  year  from  the  death  of  Leo.  He  took  the  title  of  Victor 
11.  The  emperor  with  a  large  army  accompanied  the  new 
pope  into  Italy.  New  troubles  quickly  arose.  Boniface, 
the  Margrave  of  Tuscany,  had  been  murdered  some  three 


254  The  History  of  Christianity 

years  before,  leaving  a  widow,  Beatrix,  and  three  minor  chil- 
dren. Two  of  these  children  died  shortly  after  their  father, 
leaving  only  Mathilde,  a  girl  eight  years  of  age.  Two  years 
after  the  death  of  Boniface,  his  widow  married  Godfrey,  the 
duke  of  Lorraine,  who  had  taken  part  with  Leo  in  the  un- 
happy struggle  with  the  Normans.  Godfrey  was  a  bitter 
enemy  of  Henry  III  and  was  now  a  foe  to  be  reckoned  with 
as  he,  by  his  marriage,  had  obtained  control  of  Tuscany  and 
all  the  other  vast  possessions  of  his  wife.  In  case  he  formed 
an  alliance  with  the  growing  Norman  power  in  the  south,  he 
would  have  all  Italy  at  his  back  and  could  dispose  of  the 
papacy  as  he  saw  fit  and  obtain  for  himself  the  imperial 
crown.  Henry  recognized  the  danger  and  acted  with  his  ac- 
customed energy.  He  marched  to  Florence  where  Beatrix 
and  Mathilde  resided,  and  seized  them  as  hostages  for  the 
good  conduct  of  Godfrey,  and  carried  them  with  him  into 
Germany.  Godfrey  hastened  to  Lorraine  and  stirred  up  a 
dangerous  revolt  against  Henry,  which  was  scarcely  put 
down  when  the  emperor  suddenly  died  at  the  early  age  of 
thirty-nine,  October  5th,  1056,  only  a  few  days  after  receiv- 
ing the  new  pope  at  Goslar.  He  was  buried  on  his  birthday, 
October  18,  beside  his  noble  parents  in  the  Cathedral  church 
at  Speier,  and  his  young  son  Henry,  scarce  six  years  old, 
was  conducted  to  Aachen  and  crowned  by  the  pope.  The 
empire  reached  the  height  of  its  power  under  the  strong  and 
righteous  rule  of  Henry  III,  but  the  church  saw  in  his  un- 
timely death  its  own  delivery  from  imperial  dictation. 

Before  the  death  of  Henry  III  he  had  made  terms  with 
Godfrey  and  allowed  him  to  take  possession  of  his  duchy  and 
the  rich  inheritance  of  his  wife  in  Tuscany.  Upon  his  death, 
the  empress,  Agnes,  was  made  regent  for  her  young  son, 
while  Pope  Victor  II  acted  as  suzerain  of  both  the  papacy 
and  the  empire.  After  spending  Christmas  with  the  young 
king  at  Regensburg,  the  pope  returned  to  Italy  where  he 
celebrated  Easter  at  Rome.  Once  more  the  summer  heat 
of  the  Eternal  City  was  too  much  for  a  German  pope.  On 
the  28th  of  July,  Victor  II  died  of  a  fever  at  Arezzo.  He 
was  but  thirty-nine  years  of  age  and  was  a  man  of  great 
activity   and  physical  vigor,  giving  promise  of  a  long  life 


Attempts  at  Reform  255 

of  usefulness  to  both  church  and  state.  Frederic,  the 
brother  of  Godfrey,  and  now  ordained  abbot  of  Monte  Cas- 
sino,  was  elevated  to  the  Roman  See  and  took  the  name  of 
Stephen  IX.  He  undertook  to  carry  forward  the  reforms 
which  had  been  undertaken  by  his  predecessors.  He  issued 
a  brief  against  simony  and  intrusted  the  promulgation  of 
the  same  to  Humbert,  the  cardinal-bishop  of  Sylvia  Candida, 
whom  he  made  arch-chancellor  of  the  papacy.  Humbert  was 
the  author  of  a  treatise  on  simony  in  wliich  he  denounced  lay 
investiture  as  the  chief  source  of  the  evil.  In  this  he  was 
in  a  measure  right.  With  the  true  spirit  of  a  monk,  he 
claimed  that  it  was  degrading  and  infamous  in  the  extreme, 
that  the  ring  and  the  staff,  the  symbols  of  spiritual  office, 
should  be  bestowed  by  female  hands,  as  they  now  were  b\^  the 
empress,  Agnes.  This  position  threatened  the  amicable  rela- 
tions which  had  heretofore  existed  between  the  papacy  and 
the  empire,  and  the  pope  sent  Hildebrand  off  to  Germany 
to  smooth  things  over  and  to  obtain  the  sanction  of  Agnes 
to  the  election  of  the  pope.  His  mission  was  successful  and 
Stephen  was  duly  recognized.  The  pope  now  undertook  to 
rid  Italy  of  the  Norman  invaders,  a  task  in  which  Leo  had 
so  signally  failed.  He  started  for  the  southland  with  this 
purpose  in  view  when  he  fell  ill  at  Monte  Cassino.  He  has- 
tened to  Florence,  the  residence  of  his  brother  Godfrey,  but 
turned  aside  to  the  village  of  Vallambrosa  where  he  died  in 
1058.  He  was  the  fifth  pope  furnished  b\^  Germany  since 
Clement  II.  They  were  generally  looked  upon  with  suspi- 
cion by  the  Germans  as  they  were  thought  to  have  become 
Italianized  by  their  residence  in  Rome.  They  were  generally 
hated  by  the  Italians,  as  the  common  people  looked  upon 
them  as  foreigners,  while  the  clergy  and  Tusculan  nobility 
hated  them  because  of  their  attempted  reforms.  But  they 
had  been  sustained  by  the  strong  arm  of  the  empire,  and  their 
conduct  had  been  uniformly  a  model  of  uprightness  and  mod- 
esty. 

The  empire  was  in  the  hands  of  a  weak  woman  and  Hilde- 
brand was  absent  in  Germany  when  the  pope  died.  The 
various  factions  of  the  opposition  now  concluded  that  the 
time  was  ripe  for  having  a  pope  of  their  own  choosing  and, 


256  The  History  of  Christianity 

although  Stephen  had  pronounced  anathema  upon  any  who 
attempted  to  elect  his  successor  until  Hildebrand  should 
arrive  at  Rome,  the  temptation  was  too  great  to  be  resisted. 
The  counts  of  Tusculum  and  Galicia,  together  with  the  sons 
of  Crescencius  of  Monticello  and  their  partisans,  secured  the 
city  and  the  papal  palaces  with  troops  and  placed  John 
Mincius,  bishop  of  Villetri,  a  Roman  belonging  to  a  noble 
Italian  family,  on  the  papal  throne,  compelling  a  priest  of 
Ostia  to  consecrate  him  at  night  with  the  title  of  Benedict 
X.  Peter  Damiani  and  other  friends  of  the  late  pope  fled 
for  safety  from  the  city.  It  was  at  this  juncture  that  Hil- 
debrand returned  from  Germany  and,  so  soon  as  he  had  been 
acquainted  with  the  facts,  halted  for  a  time  at  Florence  and 
thought  out  a  plan  of  action.  He  saw  the  danger  to  all  his 
cherished  reforms  should  the  Italian  nobles  succeed  in  their 
irregular  election.  He  finally  succeeded  in  obtaining  the  re- 
jection of  Benedict  by  the  empress  and  obtained  authority 
from  her  to  proceed  to  a  new  election.  Godfrey  of  Lorraine 
promised  him  the  necessary  force  to  expel  the  usurping  pope, 
as  he  was  himself  a  reformer  and  heartily  in  sympathy  with 
the  aims  of  Hildebrand.  The  latter  now  placed  in  nomina- 
tion Gerhard,  bishop  of  Florence,  a  Burgundian  by  birth, 
and  well  known  at  the  court  of  Henry  III  as  an  upright  and 
holy  man.  He  was,  like  his  German  predecessors,  a  cham- 
pion of  reform,  and  a  man  of  vigorous  intellect  and  wide 
learning.  Godfrey  furnished  the  troops  and  Hildebrand  the 
money  to  secure  the  success  of  the  enterprise.  The  cardinals 
and  clergy  were  reassembled  at  Siena  and  elected  Gerhard 
pope  on  the  28th  of  December.  A  synod  which  was  imme- 
diately summoned  at  Sutri,  pronounced  a  decree  of  deposi- 
tion against  Benedict  and  excommunicated  him.  Benedict 
fled  to  Galicia  where  he  was  besieged  by  the  troops  of  God- 
frey and  took  refuge  in  the  church  of  Santa  Maria  Maggiore. 
He  finally  fell  into  the  hands  of  Hildebrand  who  carried 
him  before  Nicholas  and  a  council  in  the  Lateran.  Here  the 
robes  of  office  were  placed  upon  him,  after  which  he  was 
tried,  condemned,  and  the  robes  stripped  off  before  the  altar. 
He  was  finally  deposed  from  all  spiritual  offices  and  sent  into 


The  Council  in  the  Lateran  257 

the  monastery  of  St.  Agues  where  he  lived  on  for  more  than 
twenty  years. 

Gerhard  was  consecrated  in  St.  Peter's  on  the  25th  day 
of  January  and  took  the  name  of  Nicholas  II.  His  pontifi- 
cate is  mainly  remembered  by  the  establishment  of  two  great 
foundations  of  papal  power ;  one  was  the  formal  alliance  with 
the  Normans  which  henceforth  gave  the  swords  of  these  fierce 
warriors  to  the  service  of  St.  Peter;  the  other  was  a  decree 
passed  immediately  after  his  election  at  a  great  Lateran 
council  concerning  the  election  of  a  pope  and  which  was  the 
greatest  revolution  attempted  in  the  hierarchy  since  the  days 
of  the  apostles.  "  The  council  enacted  that  on  the  death 
of  a  pope  the  cardinal-bishops  should  first  assemble  and 
nominate  a  successor ;  they  should  then  summon  the  cardinal- 
priests  to  vote  upon  their  choice ;  and  finally  the  people 
should  be  consulted  and  give  their  consent."  The  right  of 
the  emperor  to  confirm  this  choice  was  recognized  in  rather 
vague  terms.  This  ran  as  follows :  "  Saving  due  honor  and 
reverence  to  Henry,  at  this  present  time  king,  and  destined, 
as  it  is  hoped,  to  be  emperor  by  the  favor  of  God,  even  as  we 
have  granted  this  right  to  him  and  his  successors,  as  many 
as  shall  personally  obtain  it  from  the  apostolic  see."  By 
the  further  act  of  this  council,  the  Roman  clergy  were  to 
have  a  prerogative  right  to  the  popedom.  In  case  a  fit  per- 
son could  not  be  found  within  the  church  of  Rome,  any 
stranger  was  to  be  eligible.  In  case  the  election  could  not  be 
held  inside  the  city,  it  might  be  held  by  the  cardinals,  clergy, 
and  "  representatives  of  the  faithful  laity  in  any  place  which 
the  cardinals  might  deem  convenient." 

The  council  which  adopted  the  new  method  of  electing  a 
pope  was  far  the  largest  that  had  ever  met  in  the  Lateran. 
One  hundred  and  thirteen  arch-bishops  were  present  together 
with  a  multitude  of  the  lower  clergy.  But  though  large,  it 
was  not  representative  of  western  Christendom  as  three- 
fourths  of  the  total  number  were  Italians  while  the  remainder 
came  from  Burgundy  in  France.  German}',  which  was  the 
big  end  of  the  empire,  had  not  one  single  representative  pres- 
ent and  could  not  be  criticized  for  being  unwilling  to  recog- 


258  The  History  of  Christianity 

nize  as  binding  the  action  of  such  a  one-sided  council  as  that. 
This  election  decree  which  was  entrusted  to  the  keeping  of 
Norman  swords  was  unpopular  in  both  Italy  and  Germany. 
In  Italy  there  were  many  nobles  of  German  descent  who  held 
their  titles  from  the  empire  and  so  sided  with  Germany. 
There  were  also  Latin  nobles  from  the  empire  who  were  un- 
willing to  recognize  the  sovereignty  of  the  pope.  The  city 
of  Rome  was  split  into  two  parties,  a  papal  and  an  imperial, 
while  there  was  a  large  number  of  turbulent  nobles  who  were 
unwilling  to  recognize  either  party  but  wished  unmolested 
to  continue  their  pillaging  and  robbery.  The  pope  was 
compelled  to  support  his  authority  with  Roman  soldiers. 
Thus  all  the  elements  of  the  revolution  were  present  when, 
on  the  27th  of  July,  1061,  Nicholas  II  died.  His  death  fur- 
nished the  excuse  as  well  as  the  occasion  for  political  up- 
heaval. 

The  enemies  of  reform  now  thought  that  the  time  for  inde- 
pendent action  had  arrived.  They  claimed  that  the  election 
of  Nicholas  II  had  been  irregular,  and  no  doubt  it  was. 
They  also  claimed  that  the  new  scheme  of  election  was  a 
direct  violation  of  all  precedents.  The  same  might  truth- 
fully be  said  of  all  reforms.  They  held  a  parliament  at 
wliich  they  conferred  the  patriciate  upon  the  young  King 
Henry,  sent  him  the  insignia  of  his  office  and  asked  him  to 
nominate  a  new  pope  that  would  be  favorable  to  them. 
These  conservatives  were  joined  by  the  bishops  of  Lombardy 
and  envoys  from  the  city  of  Milan  who  urged  the  empress  to 
use  her  influence  with  her  son  to  nominate  a  Lombard  pope 
"who  would  be  an  enemy  of  clerical  celibacy.  It  must  be 
remembered  that  the  clergy  of  Milan  were  ver}'^  influential 
both  on  account  of  their  numbers  and  their  wealth.  They 
were,  in  large  majority,  married  and  were,  consequently, 
opposed  to  the  reform  decrees.  A  distinct  party  was  thus 
organized  siding  with  the  empress  and  opposed  to  reform. 

While  the  conservative  party  was  thus  organizing  in  Lom- 
bardy, and  gathering  all  their  friends  in  Rome  to  oppose 
Hildebrand  and  elect  a  pope  to  their  liking,  the  reformers 
were  not  idle.  They  first  sent  Cardinal  Stephen  on  a  vain 
mission  to  win  the  bov  eraoeror.     The  German  bishoDS  held 


Pope  Alexander  II  259 

a  synod  at  which  they  declared  the  acts  of  the  Lateran  coun- 
cil void.  Thereupon  Hildebrand  summoned  the  cardinals, 
in  accordance  with  the  Lateran  decree,  on  the  first  of  Octo- 
ber, 1061,  and  elected  Anselm,  bishop  of  Lucca,  a  Lombard 
and  intimate  friend  of  Hildebrand,  as  pope  under  the  title 
of  Alexander  11.  A  crowd  of  monks  bore  him  on  their  shoul- 
ders in  triumph  through  the  city,  while  a  strong  force  of 
Norman  soldiers  protected  him  from  any  assault  which  could 
be  made  by  the  imperial  partisans. 

This  one-sided  election  of  Alexander  was  looked  upon  by 
the  Germans  as  a  high-handed  invasion  of  their  rights,  while 
the  Lombard  ecclesiastics  saw  in  it  the  hand  of  the  cunning 
Hildebrand  and  dreaded  new  reforms.  These  now  joined 
with  the  German  bishops  under  the  leadership  of  Guibert  of 
Ravenna,  in  an  assembly  at  Basle,  in  October,  and  elected 
Cadalus,  bishop  of  Parma,  as  pope,  under  the  name  of  Hono- 
rius  II.  Cadalus  was  a  weak  and  vacillating  man,  in  no  way 
fitted  to  enter  into  a  contest  with  such  a  man  as  Hildebrand, 
but  he  had  plenty  of  money  and  he  knew  how  and  where  to 
use  it.  Damiani,  the  official  vilifier  of  the  party  of  Hilde- 
brand, represented  him  as  a  man  without  character  or  learn- 
ing but  such  partisan  vituperation  must  be  taken  at  its 
worth.  Two  popes  now  confronted  each  other,  chosen  by 
hostile  parties  and  representing  opposing  principles.  The 
one  was  resident  in  Rome,  the  other  beyond  the  Alps.  Each 
now  proceeded  to  prepare  with  zeal  for  the  conflict.  To  this 
universal  interest  attached  because  it  was  thoroughly  under- 
stood that  the  struggle  now  on  was  not  simply  between  two 
rival  popes,  but  rather  between  the  papacy  and  the  empire. 

Alexander  was  a  weak  man  but  he  had  back  of  him  the 
most  forceful  character  of  the  age,  Hildebrand,  whom  he 
immediately  appointed  as  chancellor  and  who  furnished  him 
with  brains.  He  also  had  Peter  Damiani,  the  fiery  monk, 
who  pelted  the  opposing  candidate  with  such  vigorous  ex- 
pressions as,  "  the  devil's  preacher,"  "  the  apostle  of  Anti- 
christ," "  food  for  hell  fire,"  and  similar  phrases  which, 
though  elegant  epithets,  were  scarcely  Christian  in  senti- 
ment. In  the  company'  of  these  men  and  a  large  body  of 
followers   Alexander   made    a   triumphant   journey   through 


260  The  History  of  Christianity 

the  streets  of  Rome,  protected  by  Norman  soldiers.  But 
Cadalus  was  not  idle.  He  did  not  believe  that  he  was  an  im- 
postor and  usurper  as  Damiani  had  said.  He  did  not  even 
believe  that  he  was  "  food  for  hell  fire."  He  had  been  the 
imperial  chancellor  of  the  rugged  Henry  III  and  was  a  cour- 
tier of  high  standing.  He,  moreover,  had  what  the  Roman 
populace  was  ever  greedy  for.  He,  therefore,  started  for 
Italy  with  confidence,  in  the  spring  of  1062,  and  was  con- 
ducted by  the  imperialist  party  from  city  to  city  with  great 
display.  His  party  halted  at  Parma  and  completed  ar- 
rangements for  the  descent  upon  Rome. 

While  the  opposing  popes  were  thus  getting  ready  for 
the  conflict  the  city  of  Rome  was  far  from  quiet.  The 
imperial  party  within  the  city  gathered  beneath  the  banner 
of  Benzo,  the  bishop  of  Albi  in  Piedmont.  He  was  a  man 
of  considerable  eloquence  and  not  devoid  of  wit.  He  had 
been  appointed  to  the  ofl^ce  of  commissioner  of  the  empress 
Agnes  to  the  Romans,  and  his  name  and  oflice  had  attracted 
to  him  the  discontented  nobles  and  prelates  throughout 
Italy.  Benzo  first  formed  an  Honorian  party  in  Tuscany 
and  afterwards  went  to  Rome  where  he  was  received  with 
high  honor.  He  summoned  an  assembly  of  all  the  adherents 
of  Honorius  in  the  Circus  Maximus  where  a  Gothic  king 
had  held  the  last  chariot  race  seen  in  the  city  of  Rome. 
The  arena  was  overgrown  with  grass  and  weeds,  but  the 
seats  were  still  in  good  repair.  This  assembly  took  on  such 
a  popular  appearance,  as  if  the  whole  city  were  present, 
that  Alexander  attended  in  person.  Benzo  denounced  the 
pope  in  an  harangue  that  reminded  one  of  Damiani.  He 
called  him  "  a  perjured  traitor  to  the  German  court,  who 
had  abandoned  his  see  of  Lucca  and  usurped  that  of  Rome; 
as  an  intruder  who  had  obtained  his  election  by  bribery  and 
the  aid  of  Norman  robbers ;  he  proclaimed  Hildebrand  as 
the  prime  mover  in  the  business,  for  which  they  both  had 
incurred  damnation.  He  exhorted  him  to  abdicate  the  chair 
of  St.  Peter  and  seek  forgiveness  of  Henry."  Alexander 
only  took  time  to  deny  the  charge  against  him  and  rode  off 
amid  the  hoots  and  cat-calls  of  the  populace.  While  Benzo 
was  carrying  on  his  campaign  for  Honorius  in  Rome  that 


Pope  Alexander  II  261 

pope  was  journeying  from  Parma  southward  in  company 
with  Guibert.  He  pitched  his  tents  at  Monte  Maria  and 
there  awaited  the  forces  that  Hildebrand  had  hastily  gath- 
ered together  for  the  support  of  Alexander.  In  the  battle 
which  took  place  Honorius  was  completely  victorious,  leav- 
ing the  battlefield  strewn  with  the  bodies  of  his  enemies.  He 
entered  the  Leonine  gate  of  the  city  on  the  14th  of  April 
and  here  his  progress  came  to  an  end  and  he  was  unable 
either  to  advance  or  retreat.  In  the  meantime  Godfrey  of 
Lorraine  was  approaching  with  a  large  army  from  the  north. 
He  encamped  before  the  walls  of  the  city,  but  abstained  from 
interfering  and  settling  the  dispute  by  force  of  arms.  Both 
Alexander  and  Honorius  appealed  to  Godfrey  but  he  com- 
manded each  to  return  to  his  bishopric,  leaving  the  decision 
to  the  arbitrament  of  the  emperor.  They  finally  consented 
to  do  this.  A  decision  was  finally  given  in  favor  of  Alexan- 
der, no  doubt,  through  the  influence  of  Hildebrand. 

Alexander,  being  finally  recognized  and  seated,  occupied 
the  papal  throne  for  twelve  years.  The  purpose  for  which 
Hildebrand  had  been  struggling  for  a  quarter  of  a  century 
was  practically  accomplished  during  this  reign,  and  the 
claim  of  the  crown  to  interfere  in  papal  elections  was  ef- 
fectively met.  The  Romans  finally  grew  tired  of  the  claims 
of  Honorius  and,  after  a  year  spent  in  St.  Angelo,  he  pur- 
chased the  privilege  of  retiring  to  the  northern  part  of 
Italy  with  the  sum  of  three  hundred  pounds  of  silver.  A 
council  held  at  Mantua,  in  1264,  upheld  the  decision  of  the 
emperor  and  declared  Alexander  to  be  the  lawful  pope  and 
formally  deposed  Cadalus,  who  now  retired  to  Parma  where 
he  lived  on  for  several  years,  still  laying  claim  to  the  papal 
throne  but  giving  no  further  trouble.  Very  little  of  impor- 
tance was  accomplished  in  the  subsequent  years  of  Alexan- 
der's reign.  He  was  unable  to  contend  successfully  with  all 
the  warring  forces  arrayed  against  him.  His  strong  friend 
and  champion,  Godfrey,  died  in  1072,  thus  weakening  his 
power  of  control.  A  great  festival,  the  most  brilliant  ever 
held  in  Italy,  was  celebrated  at  Monte  Cassino  in  the  conse- 
cration of  the  famous  new  basilica.  The  pope  and  Hilde- 
brand were  present  as  well  as  throngs  of  Norman  counts  and 


•262  The  History  of  Christianity 

Lombard  princes.  The  festival  lasted  eight  days  and  cele- 
brated the  friendly  alliance  which  had  taken  place  between 
Rome  and  the  Normans.  It  actually  menaced  the  imperial 
theory  of  government  and  strengthened  the  hands  of  the 
pope.  Soon  after  its  close,  on  April  21,  1073,  Alexander 
II  died.  Hildebrand,  who  had  been  the  real  head  and  con- 
trolling power  of  the  papacy  for  a  quarter  of  a  century, 
succeeded  to  the  office  as  Gregory  VII. 

Church  and  empire  have  been  thus  far  sparring  for  posi- 
tion. It  is  now  possible  to  discover  the  trend  of  events  and 
to  see  well  on  toward  the  end.  With  these  twin  pretenders 
to  universal  empire  in  the  condition  indicated,  the  empire 
received  a  new  champion  in  the  son  of  Henry  IV,  a  lad  but 
six  years  old  when  his  illustrious  father  died  in  1056.  He 
was  but  twenty-three  when  the  church  chose  to  the  chair 
of  St.  Peter  her  most  renowned  son,  Hildebrand,  as  Gregory 
VII. 

While  Hildebrand  had  been  so  faithfully  building  up  the 
church  into  a  strong  central  power,  the  German  kingdom 
had  been  continually  growing  weaker  through  the  long 
minority  of  Henry  IV.  A  powerful  and  able  man  could  not 
have  harmonized  its  many  warring  factions,  its  lords,  its 
dukes,  its  counts,  and  its  margraves,  jealous  of  each  other 
and  perpetually  struggling  for  precedence,  without  all  the 
skill  he  possessed.  It  was  an  impossible  task  for  a  weak 
woman  like  Agnes.  She  was  thoroughly  religious  and  her 
intentions  were  good,  but  she  had  no  will  of  her  own  and 
barkened  first  to  one  counsellor  and  then  to  another  without 
any  definite  or  fixed  plan.  Her  favorites  were  chosen  be- 
cause of  personal  attachment  and  not  by  reason  of  their 
wisdom  or  uprightness  of  character.  Gold  or  favor  was  the 
only  road  to  a  hearing  at  the  German  court.  The  principal 
counsellor  of  the  empress  was  Henry,  bishop  of  Augsburg, 
a  man  of  large  experience  and  upright  character.  From 
the  position  which  he  held  at  court  he  was  looked  upon  with 
hatred  and  envy,  and  all  manner  of  baseless  and  slanderous 
stories  were  circulated  concerning  his  conduct  with  Agnes. 
The  nobility  were  indignant  because  a  woman  controlled  in 
all  the  affairs  of  state  through  the  instrumentality  of  a  man 


Youth  of  Henry  Hildebrand  263 

whom  they  despised.  They  declared  that  the  young  king 
was  being  educated  under  female  influence,  and  was  not  in- 
structed in  manly  studies  or  chivalrous  sports.  Such  a 
person,  they  said,  would  be  unfit  to  take  his  place  with  men 
of  parts  and  carry  on  the  affairs  of  state  or  lead  in  times 
of  war.  The  nobility  generally  wished  to  see  Henry  sepa- 
rated from  the  influences  about  him  and  put  into  training 
suited  for  his  liigh  position.  When  the  young  king  had 
reached  the  age  of  twelve  years,  a  plot  was  formed  by  the 
leaders  of  the  malcontents  to  get  him  away  from  court  and 
surround  him  with  more  wholesome  influences.  The  empress 
and  her  son,  in  company  with  the  bishop  of  Augsburg,  spent 
the  early  part  of  the  year  at  Goslar,  a  town  in  Saxony. 
Early  in  March  they  journeyed  to  the  famous  old  town  of 
Paderborn  and,  on  Easter,  attended  a  festival  at  Utrecht. 
After  the  festival  they  went  with  a  small  band  of  followers 
to  a  palace  on  the  Rhine  at  a  town  now  known  as  Kaiser- 
Avorth,  where  a  banquet  was  given  in  honor  of  the  empress 
and  her  son.  Bishop  Anno,  who  was  present,  took  occasion 
to  praise  the  beauty  of  a  barge  belonging  to  him  and  at  that 
time  lying  in  the  stream.  He  invited  the  young  prince 
Henry  to  go  on  board  and  examine  it.  This  the  young 
prince  did.  So  soon  as  he  mounted  the  deck,  however,  the 
oarsmen,  at  a  given  signal,  pushed  off  up  the  stream  toward 
Coin.  When  Henry  discovered  that  he  was  being  carried 
off,  he  jumped  overboard  and  attempted  to  swim  to  shore 
but  was  overtaken  by  Count  Fobert  and  taken  back  to  the 
barge  which  then  proceeded  on  a  leisurely  journey  to  Coin 
where  the  young  king  was  placed  in  the  care  of  Anno.  The 
empress  was  soon  reconciled  to  the  bishop  and  consented  to 
have  her  son  in  his  charge.  This  high-handed  act  brought 
about  a  complete  change  of  policy  on  the  part  of  the  em- 
pire. The  party  of  reform  headed  by  Hildebrand  hailed 
the  conspirators  as  friends  and  an  assembly  of  nobles  held 
at  Coin  decided  that  the  guardianship  of  the  young  king  and 
the  administration  of  imperial  affairs  should  devolve  upon 
the  bishop  in  whose  diocese  the  king  was  held.  Bishop  Anno 
thus  became  not  only  the  guardian  of  the  king  but  also 
assumed  the   duties  which  had  till  now  devolved  upon  the 


264  The  History  of  Christianity 

empress-mother.  Agnes  now  retired  to  Rome  and  gave  her- 
self entirely  to  religion,  resigning  all  interference  with  poli- 
tics. 

The  council  which  met  at  Mantua  in  1066,  and  recog- 
nized Alexander  II  and  deposed  Cadalus,  divided  the  guard- 
ianship of  the  king  and  the  administration  of  imperial  affairs 
between  Anno,  archbishop  of  Coin,  and  Adalbert,  archbishop 
of  Bremen.  This  was  an  unhappy  arrangement  in  every  way 
as  these  two  men  were  opposite  in  character  and  had  noth- 
ing in  common.  Anno  was  a  man  of  humble  birth,  affable 
to  his' inferiors  but  haughty  to  men  of  rank.  Adalbert  was 
a  man  of  high  birth,  harsh  and  overbearing  to  men  of  low 
degree,  but  prodigal  in  his  gifts  to  those  who  flattered  him; 
a  thorough  courtier  with  a  genuine  reverence  for  royalty. 
He  became,  naturally,  the  favorite  guardian  of  the  young 
king  who  looked  upon  him  as  a  pleasing  and  indulgent  friend. 
Anno  was  thoroughly  disliked  by  his  pupil  as  he  lacked  the 
graciousness  of  his  colleague  and  had  rather  the  temper  of 
a  despotic  schoolmaster.  Neither  one  of  these  guardians 
could  be  considered  as  a  wise  guide  to  youth,  and  they 
utterly  failed  to  fulfill  the  wish  of  those  who  separated  him 
from  his  mother  in  order  to  have  him  trained  in  the  duties 
of  state  and  manly  sports  of  the  time.  He  was  never  taught 
self-control,  but  humoured  in  everything.  Anno  was  severe 
in  rebuking  the  minor  evils  in  the  young  prince,  but  granted 
him  no  part  and  furnished  him  no  instruction  in  the  weighty 
matters  of  church  and  state.  Adalbert  allowed  him  abso- 
lutely free  rein  in  the  indulgence  of  his  tastes  and  passions, 
but  did  put  forth  some  little  effort  to  instruct  him  in  diplo- 
macy and  statecraft.  In  this  way  the  young  king  grew 
to  manhood,  vacillating  in  temper,  licentious  in  habits,  impa- 
tient of  control,  and  utterly  untrained  in  all  those  things 
which  were  necessary  for  a  young  prince  to  know.  At  the 
age  of  fifteen  he  was  girded  with  a  sword.  This  was  the 
token  that  he  was  henceforth  to  assume  the  active  conduct 
of  government.  The  days  of  guardianship  were  past. 
This  impressive  ceremony  was  performed  at  Worms,  JMarch 
29th,  1065,  Duke  Godfrey  of  Lotharingia  carrying  his  shield 
and  Eberhard,  archbishop  of  Trier,  binding  his  sword  upon 


Youth  of  Henry  Hildehrand  265 

him.  In  the  following  year  Henry  was  married  to  Bertha 
to  whom  he  had  been  betrothed  by  his  father  when  he  was  a 
little  child.  Milman  gives  the  following  admirable  sketch 
of  the  young  king  at  this  time: 

"  The  emperor  was  a  youth  with  all  the  disadvantages  of 
youth,  the  passions  and  weaknesses  of  a  boy  born  to  empire, 
but  with  none  of  the  adventitious  and  romantic  interests 
which  might  attach  the  generous  to  his  cause.  He  had  been 
educated,  if  education  it  might  be  called,  by  a  gentle  mother, 
by  imperious  churchmen  who  had  galled  him  with  all  that 
was  humiliating,  with  none  of  the  beneficial  effects  of  severe 
control.  They  had  only  been  indulgent  to  his  amusements ; 
they  had  not  trained  him  in  the  duties  of  his  station,  or  the 
knowledge  of  the  affairs  of  men.  In  his  earliest  youth  thus 
altogether  undisciplined,  he  had  been  compelled  to  contract 
a  marriage  for  which  he  felt  profound  aversion ;  and  the 
stem  churchmen  who  had  bound  this  burden  upon  him  re- 
fused to  release  him.  He  tried  to  bribe  Siegfried  of  Mentz 
to  sanction  the  divorce,  by  promising  his  aid  in  despoiling 
the  abbots  of  Fulda  and  Herzfeld  of  the  tithes  of  Thurin- 
gia ;  but  the  pope  sent  the  stem  Peter  Damiani  to  forbid 
the  evil  example.  '  Well  then,'  said  Henry,  '  I  will  bear 
the  burden  which  I  cannot  throw  off,'  and  when,  no  doubt 
in  consequence,  he  plunged  with  reckless  impetuosity  into  the 
licentiousness  which  his  station  could  command,  this  unex- 
cused,  unpalliated,  was  turned  to  his  shame  and  discredit 
by  his  inexorable  adversaries.  At  length,  indeed,  his  gen- 
erous nature  revolted  at  his  ill-treatment  of  a  gentle  and 
patient  wife.  .  .  .  Thus  with  all  the  lofty  titles,  the  pomp 
without  the  power,  the  burden  with  nothing  but  the  enervat- 
ing luxuries,  none  of  the  lofty  self-confidence  of  one  born 
and  fitly  trained  to  empire,  the  character  of  Henry  was  still 
further  debased  by  the  shame  of  perpetual  defeat  and  humil- 
iation. His  great  qualities,  till  they  were  forced  out  by 
adversity,  his  high  abilities,  till  gradually  refined  and  ripened 
by  use  and  experience,  were  equall^^  unsuspected  by  his  par- 
tisans and  his  enemies." 

While  the  German  kingdom  was  being  weakened  and  its 
glory  lost  by  the  many  evils  incident  to  a  long  minority, 


266  The  History  of  Christianity 

Hildebrand  had  been  consolidating  the  papal  power  in  Italy. 
He  had  labored  with  some  success  to  establish  terms  of  amity 
between  the  Lombards  and  the  papacy.  He  had  bound 
Beatrix  and  her  daughter  Mathilde  of  Tuscany  to  the  church 
in  such  bonds  of  love  and  veneration  that  they  could  never 
be  broken,  thus  securing  vast  domains  to  the  support  of  the 
church.  He  had  established  a  strong  alliance  with  the  Nor- 
mans in  Apulia  so  that  their  swords  were  placed  at  the  com- 
mand of  the  papacy.  He  had  striven  everywhere  to  advance 
the  claims  of  the  papacy  over  the  temporal  powers  of  Chris- 
tendom. His  aims  were  at  least  partially  accomplished  be- 
fore his  own  elevation.  The  people  both  north  and  south 
had  been  taught  to  respect  the  papal  power.  "  The  great 
body  of  Christians  in  the  west  would  no  more  have  thought 
of  discussing  the  character  of  the  pope  than  the  attributes 
of  God.  He  was  to  them  the  apostle,  the  vice-regent  of 
God,  enveloped  in  the  same  kind  of  awful  majesty.  They 
feared  the  thunders  of  the  Lateran  as  those  of  heaven. 
Their  general  belief  in  the  judgment  to  come  was  not  more 
deeply  rooted  than  in  the  right  of  the  clergy,  to  anticipate, 
to  declare,  or  to  ratify  their  doom."  Every  qualification 
requisite  to  a  pope  of  dominating  power  and  supreme  fitness 
for  the  office  met  in  Gregory  VII.  He  had  both  virtue  and 
piety,  each  in  large  degree ;  the  fame  of  vast  theologic  knowl- 
edge and  breadth  of  scholarship ;  the  tried  ability  to  rule 
men ;  courage  which  took  pleasure  in  confronting  the  most 
powerful  and  overcoming  them ;  a  stern  singleness  of  pur- 
pose which,  cloaked  under  the  name  of  churchmanship,  gave 
reliance  and  confidence  to  his  partisans.  To  all  these  quali- 
fications he  added  a  subtle  policy  which  bordered  upon  craft. 
To  them  his  very  faults  were  virtues.  No  act  of  his  could 
be  wrong.  Vincent  says  of  him :  "  Nature  endowed  him 
with  an  indomitable  will,  a  restless  energy,  a  dauntless  cour- 
age, a  clear  conception,  an  imperious  temper,  an  instinct  of 
leadership,  and  an  intellect  of  superior  power  and  grasp. 
His  education  intensified  his  native  powers  by  narrowing 
their  range.  He  was  trained  to  rule  in  the  school  of  im- 
plicit obedience.  He  was  the  child  of  the  Roman  Church, 
inspired  from  childhood  with  the  highest  ideas  of  its  pre- 


Youth  of  Henry  Hildebrand  267 

rogatives,  and  reared  under  conditions  which  developed 
knowledge  of  men,  self-restraint,  persistence  and  diplomatic 
subtlety.  .  .  .  He  was  above  the  moral  level  of  his  age  only 
on  the  side  of  the  grosser  vices,  .  .  .  His  ideas  of  veracity, 
justice  and  charity  were  those  of  a  secular  mediaeval  despot. 
.  .  .  His  nature  was  stern  and  inflexible,  and  his  bearing 
haughty  and  insolent."  Hildebrand  was  born  in  Savon,  a 
little  village  near  the  town  of  Soana  in  Tuscany.  Being 
located  in  close  proximity  to  the  marshes  his  native  town 
was  frequently  swept  by  fever  and  so  kept  continually  in 
the  clutches  of  direful  povcrt3\  His  father's  name  was 
Bonizo ;  but  little  is  known  of  him  save  that  he  was  a  laborer 
engaged  in  the  lowly  occupation  of  a  goatherdL  Some  efl'ort 
has  been  put  forth  to  connect  him  with  the  noble  family  of 
the  Aldobrandini,  but  this  has  groMTi  from  the  fact  of  his 
naming  his  son  Hildebrand.  It  is  certain  that  the  boy  had 
influential  relatives  in  Rome.  His  mother  had  a  brother 
who  was  abbot  of  St.  Mary's  on  the  Aventine  and  because 
of  his  position  held  the  third  place  among  the  twenty  abbots 
who  assisted  the  pope  in  the  celebration  of  the  mass.  Hil- 
debrand was  sent  to  this  monastery  by  his  parents  at  a  very 
early  age  and  educated  with  many  other  boys,  some  of  noble 
birth.  It  was  at  this  kindly  home  where  he  acquired  his 
peculiar  veneration  for  the  Virgin  Mary  that  verged  upon 
actual  idolatry.  St.  Mary's  was  the  home  of  the  abbot  of 
Cluny  whenever  he  paid  a  visit  to  Rome.  It  was  also  the 
retreat  of  Laurentius,  the  learned  bishop  of  Amalfi,  and  of 
many  other  earnest  men  who  were  animated  by  the  spirit 
of  reform.  Here  Hildebrand  received  careful  training  in 
the  use  of  Latin,  the  rules  of  rhetoric  and  dialectics,  and  in 
the  writings  of  the  fathers.  He  breathed  the  atmosphere  of 
churchliness  in  every  hour  of  his  life,  while  on  every  hand 
were  continual  reminders  of  the  great  antiquity  of  the  city 
and  the  venerable  authority  of  St.  Peter.  He  liimself  stated 
in  later  life  that  "  St.  Peter  had  nourished  him  from  in- 
fancy beneath  his  wings,  and  had  fostered  him  in  the  lap 
of  his  clemency."  Very  early  he  made  his  profession  as  a 
monk  and  went  to  Cluny  where  he  passed  several  years  in  the 
severe  discipline  of  the  Benedictines.      Subsequently  he  took 


268  The  History  of  Christianity 

service  as  a  subdeacon  under  John  Gratian  who  was  at  that 
time  arch-presbyter  of  the  church  of  St.  Giovanni  by  the 
Latin  gate.  A^Tien  Hildebrand  was  but  twenty-five  years 
old  his  patron  became  pope  and  chose  him  as  his  chaplain. 
It  will  be  remembered  that  Gratian  was  the  man  who  bought 
the  papacy  from  Benedict  IX  and  himself  assumed  the 
title  of  Gregory  VI.  There  is  no  evidence  that  Hildebrand 
did  not  approve  of  this  transaction.  Certain  it  is  that  he 
aided  his  patron  in  every  way  possible  and  pushed  forward 
his  reforms.  When  Gregory  was  deposed  and  accompanied 
the  emperor  to  Germany,  Hildebrand  went  along.  We  are 
possessed  of  a  description  given  of  him  at  this  time :  *'  A 
young  man  of  small  stature  and  ungainly  figure,  feeble  voice, 
dull  of  complexion,  but  with  a  bright  and  piercing  eye,  be- 
speaking a  fiery  spirit,  and  a  mind  of  restless  activity  and 
uncommon  penetration." 

The  activity  of  Hildebrand  from  the  time  he  came  into 
public  notice  as  the  chaplain  of  Gregory  VI,  in  lO-iS,  till 
his  own  elevation  to  the  papacy,  in  1073,  has  already  been 
briefly  sketched.  He  now  devoted  himself  with  untiring  en- 
ergy to  the  organization  of  the  Christian  world  as  a  state 
over  which  the  pope  should  preside.  This  mighty  design 
involved  four  specific  purposes : 

(1)  To  wrest  from  the  emperor  the  privilege  of  nominat- 
ing the  popes,  and  so,  to  emancipate  the  papacy  from  all 
dependence  upon  the  empire. 

(2)  As  a  means  to  this  end,  he  desired  to  purify  the 
church  itself. 

(3)  To  wrest  from  all  nobles  the  privilege  of  nominating 
to  ecclesiastical  office  of  any  grade,  and  thereby  to  emanci- 
pate the  whole  church  from  control  by  the  feudal  lords. 

(4)  To  establish  the  supremacy  of  the  papacy  over  all 
temporal  powers. 

This  was,  indeed,  a  program  calling  for  gigantic  powers 
and  even  Hildebrand  hesitated  for  a  moment  on  the  brink. 
In  a  letter  which  he  wrote  to  Duke  Godfrey  shortly  after  his 
consecration  which  took  place  June  29th,  1073,  he  described 
himself  as  overwhelmed  by  the  prospect  which  lay  before 
him ;  that  he  would  "  rather  have  died  and  been  at  rest  in 


Designs  of  HUdehrand  269 

Christ  than  to  live  on  in  the  midst  of  such  perils ;  nothing 
but  trust  in  God  and  the  prayers  of  good  men  could  save 
him  from  sinking  beneath  the  load  of  anxiety ;  for  the  world 
was  lying  in  wickedness ;  all  men  and  especially  they  who 
held  high  office  in  the  church,  in  the  thirst  for  gain  and  the 
glory  of  this  world,  were  disturbers  rather  than  defenders 
of  the  church,  the  enemies  rather  than  the  friends  of  religion 
and  justice."  But  however  sorrowful  he  may  have  been, 
he  took  up  the  burden  of  his  office  without  hesitancy  and  with 
his  old-time  determination  and  perseverance.  The  Normans 
in  the  south  were  already  becoming  restless  and  dissatisfied. 
Their  leader,  Robert  Guiscard,  appeared  to  be  ill  disposed 
toward  the  new  pope.  Gregory  set  out  immediately  to  the 
south,  and  finally  succeeded  in  making  a  new  treaty  with 
Landulf  of  Benevento,  and  also  with  Richard  of  Capua. 
These  leaders  undertook  to  defend  the  person  of  the  pope 
and  the  property  of  the  Holy  See  and  never  to  invest  any 
one  with  a  church  benefice  without  the  sanction  of  the  pope. 
This  treaty  entered  into  with  the  rivals  of  Guiscard  angered 
the  Norman  leader  and  he  proceeded  to  ravage  the  territory 
of  Capua  and  Benevento.  Gregory  solemnly  excommuni- 
cated him  in  a  s^^nod  which  was  held  at  Rome  in  1074. 

After  three  months  spent  in  the  south  the  pope  returned 
to  Rome  and  began  a  correspondence  with  Henry  IV,  think- 
ing that  he  might  adjust  matters  at  the  German  court  and 
himself  assume  the  mastery  over  the  king.  Events  had  in 
the  meantime  been  playing  into  his  hands  as  the  Saxons  had 
broken  into  open  revolt  because  Henr}^  had,  at  the  instiga- 
tion of  Adalbert,  created  numerous  fortresses  throughout 
Saxony  and  placed  in  them  garrisons  for  the  purpose  of 
holding  the  people  in  check.  The  Saxons  sprang  to  arms 
under  the  leadership  of  Otto  of  Nordheim,  laid  siege  to  the 
castles  and  caused  the  prelates  that  were  friendly  to  the 
king  to  flee.  They  intercepted  and  confiscated  the  revenues 
of  the  crown  and  had  persuaded  the  Thuringians  to  join 
them  in  rebellion.  Henry  was  now  driven  by  events  to  write 
a  letter  to  the  pope  confessing  and  bewailing  his  sins,  prom- 
ising amendment  and  professing  submission  to  the  Holy  See 
in   language   the   most   meek   and   contrite.     Gregory   com- 


S70  The  History  of  Christianity 

manded  the  king  to  form  a  truce  with  the  Saxons  and  submit 
the  decision  of  the  contest  to  the  papal  legate.  Henry 
wanted  nothing  of  the  kind;  least  of  all  he  wished  the  inter- 
ference of  the  pope  in  the  struggle  as  he  deemed  the  matter 
wholly  within  his  own  jurisdiction.  He  decided  to  make 
terms  with  the  Saxons  himself  and  so  sent  an  embassy  to 
their  camp  and  entered  into  an  agreement  to  withdraw  the 
garrisons  from  the  castles  which  had  been  erected  by  him. 
This  was  satisfactory  to  the  Saxons  but  the  order  was  too 
slowly  carried  out  to  suit  them.  The  castle  of  Hartzburg, 
which  had  been  built  with  great  care,  refused  to  open  its 
gates.  To  adjust  this  difficulty  Henry  summoned  a  diet 
of  the  German  princes  upon  the  10th  of  March,  1074,  but 
this  was  too  late  to  suit  the  Saxons.  A  force  of  80,000 
insurgents  tore  down  the  castle  and  the  church  hard  by,  dug 
up  the  foundations  and  looted  everything  worth  carrying 
off.  Henry  again  appealed  to  the  pope  to  censure  the  rebels 
for  their  cruelty  and  sacrilege. 

But  Gregory  saw  his  own  plans  being  carried  out  by  the 
enemies  of  Henry  and  so  did  nothing  but  send  him  a  few 
soothing  words.  His  mind  was  occupied  with  his  great 
plan  for  the  suppression  of  lay  investitures  and  to  accom- 
plish this  he  summoned  his  first  great  reform  synod  at  the 
Lateran  on  the  13th  of  March,  1074.  The  German  bishops 
failed  to  attend  and  refused  to  acknowledge  the  validity  of 
the  synod.  But  this  did  not  deter  Gregory.  The  sjmod 
enacted  that  those  who  had  obtained  their  churches  by 
simony  should  be  compelled  to  surrender  them ;  that  married 
clergy  should  not  be  allowed  to  perform  clerical  functions. 
Robert  Guiscard,  the  Norman  leader,  who  was  at  that  time 
besieging  Benevento,  was  anathematized  together  with  all  his 
followers,  and  Philip  I  of  France  was  threatened  with  ex- 
communication. The  synod  proceeded  no  farther  at  this 
time,  but  the  decrees  which  they  passed  were  not  received  with 
much  favor  either  in  France,  Germany,  England,  or  Lom- 
bardy.  These  nations  were  still  further  angered  by  the 
sternness  and  violence  shown  b}'  Gregory  in  the  enforcement 
of  them.  Germany  was  the  first  to  stir  the  wrath  of  the 
pope  by   conspiring  with  Guibert,  the  archbishop   of  Ra- 


Second  Lateran  Synod  271 

venna,  who  championed  the  cause  of  the  clergy  of  Milan, 
most  of  whom  were  married,  to  set  at  naught  the  decrees  of 
the  synod.  He  declared  in  a  letter  to  Henry  that  self- 
seeking  men  were  attempting  to  create  distrust  between  him- 
self and  the  king.  He  next  strove  to  bring  the  north  of 
Europe  more  completely  under  control.  He  wrote  to  the 
king  of  Denmark  his  expectation  of  receiving  delegates 
from  him  to  adjust  ecclesiastical  matters  and  to  take  the 
proper  steps  for  the  establishment  of  a  metropolitan  see  in 
Denmark.  In  the  following  3'ear  he  made  arrangements  for 
a  second  great  synod  to  be  held  in  the  Lateran  to  take  into 
consideration  the  whole  question  of  lay  investiture.  The 
practice  of  investiture  rested,  from  its  origin,  on  the  prin- 
ciple that  the  ruler  of  a  country  had  the  right  to  appoint 
bishops  within  his  realm.  In  Germany  this  right  was  cham- 
pioned most  earnestly  because  the  bishoprics  and  abbeys  in 
that  country  had  become  almost  entirely  political  organiza- 
tions, the  same  as  any  other  fiefs.  They  coined  money, 
received  toll,  and  exercised  criminal  and  civil  jurisdiction. 
They  furnished  their  military  complements,  and  it  was  a 
common  sight  to  see  a  bishop  or  abbot  with  buckler  and 
sword  mounted  on  a  charger  and  leading  his  troops  in  bat- 
tle. Upon  the  death  of  a  bishop  the  ring  and  the  staff, 
which  were  the  emblems  of  his  office,  were  brought  to  the 
king  who  kept  them  in  his  possession  until  a  successor  was 
appointed.  The  new  bishop  who  had  been  chosen  Avas  put 
in  possession  of  the  temporalities  of  his  fief  by  the  ceremony 
of  investing  him  with  the  ring  and  staff,  and  receiving  from 
him  the  oath  of  fealt3\  This  ceremony  was  gone  through 
before  he  was  consecrated.  It  was  customary  for  the  newly 
invested  bishop  or  abbot  to  make  large  and  costly  presents 
to  the  king.  This  put  them  all,  in  the  eyes  of  Gregory, 
under  the  charge  of  simony. 

The  second  Lateran  synod  which  the  pope  now  convened 
had  in  reality  but  one  object  before  them,  although  they  did 
re-enact  the  decrees  against  simony  and  clerical  marriage 
which  had  been  passed  in  the  previous  years.  They  took 
into  consideration  the  question  of  lay  investitures  and  de- 
creed  that   investitures    by    laymen   with   an}^   ecclesiastical 


272  The  History  of  Christianity 

office  was  absolutely  uncanonical.  This  was  far-reaching  in 
the  extreme  and  touched  in  a  vital  point  the  royal  power  in 
Germany  and  Italy  as  this  right  was  claimed,  and  justly 
too,  as  one  of  the  most  powerful  prerogatives  of  the  empire. 
According  to  this  decree  every  bishop  or  abbot  who  should 
receive  investiture  from  a  layman  should  be  deposed  from 
his  office  and  interdicted  from  all  communion  with  the  church 
until  he  should  abandon  the  benefice  which  he  had  received. 
But  it  did  not  stop  at  this  point.  It  enacted  the  punishment 
of  deposition  from  office  of  any  emperor  or  other  secular 
potentate  who  should  take  it  upon  himself  to  invest  an  ec- 
clesiastic with  a  fief  of  the  church.  The  enactment  of  this 
celebrated  decree  opened  the  War  of  the  Investitures.  Thus 
Gregory  gave  the  watchword  for  one  hundred  years  of  strug- 
gle between  the  church  and  the  secular  powers.  "  This 
statute,"  says  Milman,  "  made  a  revolution  of  the  whole 
feudal  system  throughout  Europe  as  regarded  the  relation 
of  the  church  now  dominant,  to  the  state.  In  the  empire  it 
annulled  the  precarious  power  of  the  sovereign  over  almost 
half  his  subjects.  All  the  great  prelates  and  abbots,  who 
were  at  the  same  time  the  princes,  the  nobles,  the  counsellors, 
the  leaders  in  the  diets  and  national  assemblies,  became,  to 
a  great  degree,  independent  of  the  crown;  the  emperor  had 
no  concern,  unless  indirectly,  in  their  promotion,  no  power 
over  their  degradation.  Their  lands  and  estates  were  as 
inviolable  as  their  person.  Every  benefice,  on  the  other 
hand,  thus  dissevered  from  the  crown,  was  held,  if  not  di- 
rectly, yet  at  the  pleasure  of  the  pope.  For  as  with  him 
was  the  sole  judgment  (the  laity  being  excluded)  as  to  the 
validity  of  the  election,  with  him  was  the  decision  by  what 
offenses  they  might  be  forfeited;  and  as  the  estates  and  en- 
dowments were  inalienable  and  were  withdrawn  from  the 
national  property  and  became  that  of  the  church  and  of 
God,  the  pope  might  be,  in  fact,  liege  Lord,  temporal  and 
spiritual,  of  half  the  world." 

In  the  gigantic  struggle  that  was  now  on  it  was  not  merely 
the  patronage  nor  even  the  purity  of  the  church  which  was 
at  stake.  It  was  simply  the  question :  "  Shall  pope  or 
emperor  be  the  supreme  ruler  in  Europe.'^  " 


The  Struggle  273 

For  some  time  after  the  s^mod  Gregory  occupied  himself 
in  carrying  out  its  decrees  and  trying  to  establish  the  papal 
supremacy  in  Hungary,  where  he  had  been  called  to  medi- 
ate between  King  Solomon  and  his  rival,  Gensa.  He  also 
put  forth  a  strenuous  effort  to  become  the  political  and 
ecclesiastical  head  of  Rome,  but  in  this  he  was  doomed  to 
disappointment.  He  interfered  in  the  affairs  of  Denmark 
with  the  hope  of  bringing  that  kingdom  to  his  support.  He 
surely  realized  something  of  the  task  he  had  set  himself  and 
did  not  expect  to  win  the  battle  for  the  church  without  a 
prolonged  struggle.  Meantime  Henry  was  by  no  means 
idle.  He  had  youth  and  energy  on  his  side  and  suddenly 
discovered  a  vigor  of  action  that  surprised  his  most  inti- 
mate friends.  After  the  defeat  which  he  suffered  at  the 
hands  of  the  Saxons  he  threw  himself  with  great  energy  into 
the  movement  of  the  German  cities  against  the  pretentions 
of  the  higher  nobility  and  displayed  great  skill  in  binding 
them  to  his  cause.  The  archbishop  of  Mainz  and  the  dukes 
of  Lorraine,  Bohemia,  and  Bavaria,  together  with  Rudolph 
of  Suabia,  joined  them.  In  this  way  he  for  the  first  time 
had  a  powerful  army  at  his  back.  He  now  proceeded  to 
take  vengeance  on  the  Saxons  for  the  defeat  he  had  suffered 
at  their  hands.  Without  consulting  the  pope  he  attacked 
the  Saxon  army  which,  60,000  strong,  lay  at  Langensaltze, 
near  Homburg,  and  completely  overthrew  them.  Scarcely 
a  man  escaped.  This  made  Henry  the  complete  master  of 
Germany  and  braced  his  courage  for  the  conflict  with  the 
pope  which  he  now  saw  was  inevitable,  as  he  believed  the 
Lateran  decree  to  be  aimed  at  himself.  All  the  emperors 
of  his  line  had  invested  the  clergy  as  well  as  the  lay  nobles 
of  the  empire.  Henry  II  and  Henry  III,  although  the^^  were 
reformers  and  thoroughly  friendly  to  the  church,  had  used 
the  power  of  investiture  to  the  fullest  extent.  It  was 
scarcely  to  be  supposed  that,  at  a  moment  of  victory,  Henry 
would  submit  to  having  this  power  taken  from  him.  The 
opportunity  quickly  presented  itself  of  showing  his  hand. 
He  was  called  upon  to  nominate  a  bishop  to  the  see  of  Milan 
made  vacant  by  the  death  of  Erlambaldo.  He  immediately 
acquiesced  by  nominating  Tedaldo,  one  of  the  most  promi- 


274  The  History  of  Christianity 

nent  of  the  disaffected  bishops,  who  had  been  excommuni- 
cated by  Gregory  and  had  never  been  reinstated.  This  thor- 
oughly aroused  the  pope  who  sent  a  threatening  letter  to 
Henry  commanding  him  to  confess  to  a  bishop  and  submit 
to  a  penance  for  having  held  intercourse  with  a  person  who 
was  excommunicated.  Henry  did  not  propose  to  be  dictated 
to  and  received  the  pope's  legate  in  such  an  ungracious  man- 
ner that  he  was  summoned  to  appear  before  the  next  s^^nod 
at  Rome  and  answer  for  his  contumacious  conduct. 

In  the  meantime  trouble  arose  for  the  pope  in  another 
direction.  Cencius,  a  leader  of  the  malcontents  in  the  city 
of  Rome,  and  master  of  St.  Angelo,  made  an  attack  upon 
Gregory  on  Christmas  Eve,  1075,  while  he  was  celebrating 
midnight  mass  at  the  altar  of  the  manger  in  Santa  Maria 
Maggiore,  with  a  small  company  of  priests.  This  cele- 
brated church  was  situated  in  a  quarter  of  the  city  which 
had  a  very  bad  reputation.  Cencius,  with  a  band  of  fol- 
lowers, burst  in  upon  the  pope,  seized  him  by  the  hair, 
dragged  him  from  the  building,  and,  placing  him  upon  a 
horse  behind  a  soldier,  carried  him  off  to  one  of  his  castles  in 
the  region  of  the  Parione.  This  barbarous  act  roused  the 
whole  city  to  undertake  his  rescue.  He  was  freed  the  next 
day  and  carried  back  to  Santa  Maria  where  he  took  up  the 
interrupted  mass  where  he  left  off  and  finished  the  service. 

He  now  decided  to  take  up  the  controversy  with  Henry 
and  carry  it  to  a  successful  issue.  He  demanded  that  the 
king  restore  the  imprisoned  Saxon  bishops,  and  call  a  coun- 
cil at  which  the  pope  would  appear  to  judge  the  accused 
bishops  canonically,  and  the  excommunicated  be  dismissed 
from  office.  He  told  the  king  in  haughty  terms  that  if  he 
refused  to  do  this  he  would  cut  him  off  like  a  rotten  branch. 
The  answer  that  Henry  returned  to  this  insolent  demand 
was  a  national  synod  which  met  at  Worms  on  January  25th, 
1076.  Here  the  national  enthusiasm  of  the  Germans  dis- 
played itself  as  never  before  in  these  controversies.  Hugo 
Candidus,  the  cardinal  who  had  extolled  the  virtues  of  Hilde- 
brand  at  the  time  of  his  election,  now  came  before  Henry 
with  a  biography  of  the  pope  in  which  that  august  person- 
age was  arraigned  as  the  very  worst  of  men.      He  charged 


The  Struggle  275 

him  with  having  obtained  his  office  by  bribery  and  violence, 
and  as  being  a  man  of  Hcentiousness  and  cruelty.  Hugo 
also  forged  a  letter  from  the  Roman  senate,  clergy  and  peo- 
ple commanding  that  he  be  removed  from  office.  No  one 
really  believed  the  charges  brought  against  Gregory.  Two 
only,  of  all  the  clergy  present,  had  the  courage  to  declare 
that  the  condemnation  of  the  pope  was  uncanonical.  To 
them  was  presented  the  alternative  of  affixing  tlieir  signa- 
tures to  the  charges  or  renouncing  their  allegiance  to  the 
king.  As  this  latter  choice  meant  execution  for  treason  they 
deemed  it  best  to  make  the  decision  unanimous.  A  decree 
was  immediately  drawn  up  embracing  the  main  features  of 
the  charges  against  Gregory,  and  especially  setting  forth 
his  alleged  intimate  relations  with  Beatrix,  and  stating  that 
it  "  is  common  report  that  papal  decisions  and  decrees  are 
framed  by  certain  women,  and  that  the  church  is  governed 
by  a  '  female  saint.' "  On  these  grounds  the  council  re- 
nounced their  allegiajice  to  Gregory  and  refused  longer  to 
recognize  him  as  pope.  A  letter  in  the  name  of  the  king 
repeated  all  the  charges  which  had  been  made  before  the 
council,  but  couched  in  the  most  insulting  language. 
*'  Henry,  king,  not  by  usurpation,  but  by  God's  holy  ordi- 
nance, to  Hildebrand,  not  pope,  but  false  monk,  how  darest 
thou,  who  hast  won  thy  power  through  craft,  flattery,  brib- 
ery, and  force,  stretch  forth  thy  hand  against  the  Lord's 
anointed,  despising  the  precept  of  the  true  pope,  St.  Peter: 

*  Fear  God,  honor  thy  King'.'*  Condemned  by  the  voice  of 
all  bishops,  quit  the  apostolic  chair,  and  let  another  take 
it,  who  will  preach  the  sound  doctrine  of  St.  Peter,  and  not 
do  violence  under  the  cloak  of  religion.  I,  Henry,  by  the 
grace   of   God   King,   with   all   my   bishops,   say   unto   thee, 

*  Step  down !  thou  eternally  damned !  '  "  The  action  of  this 
council  must  needs  immediately  be  made  known  to  the  pope. 
Who  would  be  courageous  enough  to  deliver  it?  Roland, 
a  priest  of  Parma,  was  finally  induced  to  undertake  the  task. 

The  Latin  synod  to  which  the  pope  had  summoned  Henry 
to  give  an  account  of  himself  met  on  February  21st  in  the 
Lateran.  Agnes,  the  mother  of  Henry,  was  present.  There 
were  also  one  hundred  and  ten  bishops  from  Italy  and  Gaul, 


276  The  History  of  Christianity 

together  with  a  large  number  of  abbots  and  monks,  and  a 
promiscuous  throng  of  Roman  clergy  and  laity.  Germany 
was  not  represented.  A  hymn  had  been  sung  and  the  lead- 
ing churchmen  were  engaged  in  the  study  of  a  strange  por- 
tent. This  was  an  egg  on  which  was  visible  the  form  of  a 
black  snake  squirming  beneath  a  shield  which  was  being 
pressed  down  upon  its  head.  Roland  now  suddenly  ap- 
peared, dusty  from  his  long  journey,  and,  addressing  him- 
self to  Gregory,  shouted  in  a  loud  voice :  "  The  king  and 
our  bishops  bid  thee  come  down  from  the  chair  of  St.  Peter 
which  thou  hast  gained  by  robbery."  He  then  turned  to  the 
assembled  cardinals  and  bishops  and  said :  "  Ye  are  bidden 
to  receive  another  pope  from  the  king  who  will  come  here  at 
Pentecost ;  for  this  man  is  no  longer  pope  but  a  ravening 
wolf." 

The  vast  assembly  was  convulsed  with  rage  and  the  pre- 
fect started  toward  him  with  drawn  sword.  Roland  cour- 
ageously stood  his  ground  but  would  most  certainly  have 
been  slain,  had  not  Gregory  intervened  in  his  behalf  and 
shielded  him.  He  took  the  document  from  Roland's  hand 
and  then  proceeded  with  the  business  in  hand  as  if  no  inter- 
ruption had  taken  place.  Upon  the  following  day  Gregory 
read  the  resolution  of  the  council  at  Worms  and  also  the 
letter  from  Henry  to  the  synod  which  was  still  smarting 
under  the  insulting  words  of  Roland.  They  immediately 
passed  a  decree  of  excommunication  against  Siegfried  of 
Mainz  and  all  who  had  signed  the  acts  of  the  council.  The 
bishops  of  Lombardy  were  also  excommunicated.  But  it 
was,  of  course,  at  Henry  that  the  heaviest  of  all  punish- 
ments was  aimed.  First  a  long  solemn  prayer  was  offered 
up  to  St.  Peter  as  the  representative  of  whom  the  pope 
claimed  the  power  of  binding  and  loosing  in  heaven  and 
earth.  Gregory  then  pronounced  his  sentence  of  deposition 
and  excommunication  upon  the  king  as  follows :  "  For  the 
honor  and  security  of  the  church,  in  the  name  of  the  Al- 
mighty and  Triune  God,  I  do  prohibit  Henry,  king,  son  of 
Henry,  the  emperor,  from  ruling  the  kingdom  of  the  Teutons 
and  of  Italy,  and  I  release  all  Christians  from  the  oath  of 
allegiance  to  him  which  they  have  taken  or  shall  take.     And 


Henry  Excommunicated  277 

inasmuch  as  he  has  despised  obedience  by  associating  with 
the  excommunicate,  by  many  deeds  of  iniquity,  and  by  spurn- 
ing the  warnings  Avhich  I  have  given  him  for  his  good,  I 
bind  him  in  the  bands  of  anathema ;  that  all  the  nations  of 
the  earth  may  know  that  thou  art  Peter,  and  that  upon  thy 
rock  the  Son  of  the  living  God  hath  built  his  church,  and 
the  gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail  against  it."  Such  a  sen- 
tence as  this  had  never  been  announced  before  by  any  pope. 
The  nation  was  convulsed  Avith  dread  over  the  outcome  as 
it  now  saw  clearly  for  the  first  time  that  the  two  great  pow- 
ers that  had  been  for  so  long  a  time  sparring  for  position, 
like  two  gladiators,  were  now  joined  in  a  deadh'  conflict. 
If  the  act  of  the  pope  in  thus  deposing  and  excommunicating 
an  emperor  was  an  unheard  of  thing,  the  act  of  the  emperor 
in  deposing  a  pope  was  even  more  astounding.  It  was  inter- 
preted as  meaning  nothing  less  than  the  absolute  subjection 
of  the  ecclesiastical  to  the  secular  power,  and  the  emperor 
could  set  up  and  pull  down  popes  at  his  pleasure. 

Gregory  never  entertained  a  doubt  of  the  ultimate  suc- 
cess of  his  plan.  He  called  for  the  prayers  of  the  faithful 
to  the  frustration  of  the  plans  of  his  enemies,  but  he  did  not 
stop  with  prayers.  He  strove  with  all  his  energy  to 
strengthen  the  military  forces  of  Rome,  and  entered  into 
negotiations  with  Robert  Guiscard  and  Roger,  whom  he  had 
excommunicated  for  their  rebellious  conduct  in  the  south. 
Beatrix  and  the  husband  of  Mathilde  both  died  while  the 
pope  was  carrying  on  his  negotiations,  leaving  their  posses- 
sions which  amounted  to  more  than  three-fifths  of  all  Italy 
to  Mathilde  who,  from  her  earliest  recollection,  had  been 
taught  to  look  upon  the  papacy  as  established  by  God,  and 
to  esteem  Hildebrand  as  a  close  personal  friend  and  to  revere 
him  as  the  wisest  of  all  spiritual  guides.  It  was  certain  that 
Gregory  could  rely  upon  the  forces  from  her  vast  domains 
as  if  they  were  his  own.  This  gave  him  troops  sufficient  to 
withstand  any  invasions  from  beyond  the  Alps.  He  now 
waited  to  hear  what  efl'ect  his  decree  had  produced  in  Ger- 
many. The  decree  promulgated  by  the  pope  reached  Ger- 
many in  the  form  of  an  encj^clical  addressed  "  to  all  who  de- 
sire to  belong  to  the  sheep  of  St.  Peter."     It  produced  con- 


278  Tlie  History  of  Christianity 

sternation  everywhere  and  the  king  immediately  felt  the 
effects  of  it.  The  German  nobility  were  a  turbulent  and 
independent  body  and  at  best  gave  but  a  half-hearted  sup- 
port to  the  king.  They  now  took  advantage  of  the  freedom 
from  their  oaths  given  by  Gregory  to  stand  aloof  and  refuse 
to  furnish  the  aid  to  the  king  which  their  feudal  oath  re- 
quired of  them.  Henry  summoned  a  great  national  council 
at  Worms  on  May  15th,  but  nothing  came  of  it.  Other  ef- 
forts to  obtain  national  action  came  to  nothing.  Henry's 
cause  was  lost. 

The  nobles  and  prelates  of  Germany  and  Italy  finally  de- 
cided that  they  must  do  something.  They  called  a  general 
council  at  Tibur  on  the  16th  of  October  and  notified  the 
pope  of  their  action.  He  approved  of  this  and  appointed 
Altman,  bishop  of  Passau,  and  Sieghard,  patriarch  of  Aqui- 
leia,  to  attend  as  his  legates.  Here  at  the  appointed  time 
gathered  a  great  concourse  of  nobility  and  all  seemed  to 
have  forgotten  their  natural  allegiance  to  the  king  and  made 
haste  to  get  over  on  the  side  of  the  pope.  They  immedi- 
ately passed  a  vote  sanctioning  the  action  of  the  pope  in 
excommunicating  Henry.  They  then  took  up  the  question 
of  deposing  the  king  and  debated  that  for  a  week.  Mean- 
time Henry  with  a  few  friends  tarried  at  Oppenheim,  a  small 
village  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  Rhine.  He  felt  thor- 
oughly alarmed  and  discouraged  over  the  outlook  and  sent 
word  to  the  council  that  he  was  willing  not  only  to  amend 
his  conduct  but  to  surrender  the  government  to  the  whole 
body  of  nobles  providing  they  left  him  the  title  and  insignia 
of  king.  They  finally  decided  to  make  a  treaty.  Henry 
was  to  make  an  absolute  submission  to  the  pope,  making  the 
condition  that  he  was  to  obtain  release  from  excommunica- 
tion within  twelve  months  from  February  22nd,  on  pain  of 
irrevocable  forfeiture  of  the  throne.  It  was  announced  that 
a  diet  would  be  held  at  Augsburg  on  February  2nd,  1077, 
the  pope  presiding,  to  determine  the  fate  of  the  king  and  set- 
tle the  affairs  of  the  church  and  kingdom.  Henry  was  to 
abide  at  Spier,  deprived  of  all  kingly  authority  and  state 
and  bereft  of  all  companions  but  his  wife,  Dietrich,  the 
bishop  of  Verdun,  and  a  small  staff  of  servants.     In  case 


Canossa  279 

Henry  agreed  to  these  conditions  and  kept  them,  the  nobles 
on  their  part  promised  to  conduct  him  to  Rome  for  his 
coronation,  and  to  aid  him  in  driving  out  the  Normans  from 
Italy ;  but  if  he  broke  one  of  them,  they  declared  that  they 
would  renounce  all  allegiance  and  proceed  immediately  to 
the  election  of  a  new  king.  To  all  this  Henry  agreed.  He 
immediatelj'  went  to  Spier  and  took  up  his  residence  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  teiTns  of  the  treaty.  He  remained  here 
for  two  months  during  which  time  he  never  set  foot  in  a 
church  and  gave  attention  only  to  necessary  political  busi- 
ness. A  few  days  before  Christmas,  Henry,  accompanied 
by  his  wife  and  infant  son,  Conrad,  secretly  quitted  Spier 
and  proceeded  to  Besan^on  in  upper  Burgundy,  where  his 
mother's  uncle.  Count  William,  received  them  kindly  and 
entertained  them  Christmas  Day,  after  which  the  little  party 
proceeded  to  the  foot  of  INIount  Cenis.  Having  finally  ob- 
tained a  safe  conduct  to  pass  through  her  territories  from 
his  mother-in-law,  the  Marchioness  of  Susa,  Henry  under- 
took the  passage  of  the  Alps.  But  the  winter  was  unusually 
severe  and  the  passes  were  choked  with  snow  while  the  sum- 
mits were  coated  with  ice.  Horses  could  not  keep  their  feet 
and  the  queen,  with  her  young  son,  was  placed  in  a  drag  of 
skins  and  in  this  way  drawn  by  means  of  guides. 

Gregory  had,  in  the  meantime,  announced  his  intention  of 
attending  the  diet  of  Augsburg  in  person  and  settling  the 
matter  of  succession  to  the  German  crown.  He  started  on 
his  journey,  crossed  the  Apennines  and  was  on  his  way  to 
Mantua  when  messengers  met  him  and  announced  that  Henry 
had  already  crossed  the  Alps  and  was  journeying  to  meet 
him.  This  was  unwelcome  news  to  the  pope  as  he  wished  no 
reconciliation  with  the  king  and  did  not  know  but  what  he 
was  accompanied  by  a  large  army.  He  therefore  turned 
aside  and  journeyed  to  Canossa,  a  strong  fortress  belonging 
to  Mathilde  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Otranto,  some  twelve 
miles  south  and  west  of  the  village  of  Reggio.  A  marvellous 
view  of  the  Apennines  and  of  the  Lombard  plain  as  far  as 
the  city  of  IModina  was  commanded  from  this  castle.  It 
was  surrounded  by  three  walls  and  was  considered  impreg- 
nable to  any  assault  from  without.      Gregory  could  not  have 


280  The  History  of  Christianity 

chosen  a  more  secure  asylum  than  this  as  it  was  well  pro- 
visioned and  strongly  garrisoned,  and  was  graced  by  the 
presence  of  Mathilde  herself  who  was  the  lifelong  friend  of 
the  pope.  Here  he  waited  the  arrival  of  the  enemy,  if  not 
with  pleasure,  yet  with  confidence.  After  completing  the 
toilsome  journey  across  the  Alps,  Henry  with  his  wife  and 
small  retinue  of  servants  proceeded  to  Turin  where  he  was 
met  by  the  excommunicated  bishops  who  were  greatly  dis- 
tressed by  Henry's  decision  to  submit  to  the  pope,  but  being 
convinced  that  they  could  not  change  his  purpose,  they 
presented  themselves  in  the  garb  of  penitents  and  asked 
to  be  forgiven  and  reinstated.  The  pope  admitted  them  to 
his  presence  and  locked  them  in  separate  cells,  placing  them 
upon  a  diet  of  bread  and  water.  He  finally  impressed  upon 
these  prelates  rigorous  penance,  after  which  he  released  them 
from  excommunication  and  sent  them  back  to  their  offices 
with  the  charge  to  render  no  further  homage  or  aid  to 
Henry.  Gregory  at  first  refused  to  see  Henry,  but  the  lat- 
ter succeeded  in  obtaining  an  interview  with  Countess  Ma- 
thilde and  sent  through  her  a  request  to  the  pope  to  be  re- 
leased from  the  ban.  Gregory  refused  this  and  demanded 
that  the  king  should  acknowledge  himself  deposed  and  de- 
clare himself  unworthy  to  reign.  Perceiving  that  nothing 
could  be  gained  by  negotiation,  Henry  suddenly  presented 
himself  in  the  garb  of  a  penitent  before  the  castle  gate.  He 
was  only  admitted  as  far  as  the  second  wall  where  "  he  was 
compelled  to  remain  bare-footed  in  the  snow  and  clothed  in 
the  penitential  garb,  shivering  and  hungry  in  the  icy  wind  " 
(record).  Even  now  the  pope  was  unwilling  to  forgive  him 
as  he  doubtless  saw  his  own  plans  forestalled  by  this  act. 
Mathilde  had  been  nurtured  in  hatred  for  Henry  as  the 
enemy  of  her  mother,  but  even  she  was  moved  to  pity  and 
besought  the  pope  in  vain  to  forgive  him.  Finally  after 
three  days  of  penitential  humility  and  suffering,  the  king 
retired  to  the  chapel  of  St.  Nicholas  where  he  besought 
Hugo,  the  abbot  of  Cluny,  to  intercede  in  his  behalf.  At 
last  the  haughty  spirit  of  Gregory  was  moved  and  he  re- 
luctantly gave  his  consent  for  the  admission  of  Henry  to  his 
presence.     The  king  knelt  at  the  feet  of  the  pope  and  in 


Canossa  281 

tears  implored  forgiveness.  At  last  the  pope  raised  him 
from  the  ground  and  gave  him  his  blessing.  He  was  after- 
wards conducted  to  a  chapel  where  a  mass  was  celebrated  in 
commemoration  of  the  event.  And  so  ended  in  this  manner 
one  of  the  most  remarkable  scenes  in  the  whole  history  of 
the  world. 

Prior  to  the  admission  of  Henry  to  his  presence,  Gregory 
had  insisted  upon  the  terms  of  reconciliation  being  drawn 
up  and  signed  by  the  representatives  of  the  king.  In  this 
document  the  pope  was  represented  by  seven  persons :  two 
cardinal  bishops,  two  cardinal  priests,  two  cardinal  deacons 
and  one  sub-deacon.  The  king  was  represented  by  the  arch- 
bishop of  Bremen,  the  bishops  of  Osnabruck  and  Vercelli, 
the  abbot  of  Cluny,  and  several  laymen.  These  persons 
drew  up  a  contract  which  the  king  signed.  In  this  he  prom- 
ised, "  that  he  would  attend  a  meeting  of  the  German  nobles 
whenever  it  should  be  called  by  the  pope  and  be  prepared 
to  retain  or  forfeit  his  crown  according  as  the  pope,  who 
would  preside  as  arbiter,  should  pronounce  him  innocent  or 
guilty  of  the  crimes  charged  against  him.  Meanwhile  he 
was  to  lay  aside  all  insignia  of  royalty,  and  abstain  from 
all  royal  functions,  and  his  subjects  were  absolved  from  their 
oath  of  fealty ;  he  was  to  provide  a  safe  conduct  for  Gregory 
or  his  legate  across  the  Alps  and  if  he  proved  his  innocence 
he  was  henceforth  to  obey  the  pope  in  everything  which 
concerned  the  church." 

If  the  penance  of  Henry  was  what  it  actually  appears  on 
the  surface  and  not  merely,  as  some  say,  an  appearance  only, 
with  three  pairs  of  hose  on  his  "  bare  feet,"  and  warm  and 
plentiful  clothing  beneath  the  penitential  robe,  and  the 
"  three  days  "  of  waiting  shortened  to  an  hour  each  day 
with  plenty  to  eat  in  the  meantime,  then  the  stubbornness  of 
the  pope  and  the  severity  of  his  demands  are  hard  to  account 
for  and  difficult  to  believe.  If  Gregory  believed  that  the 
humbling  of  Henry  was  equivalent  to  that  of  the  whole  of 
Christendom,  then  we  may  find  some  justification  for  his 
severity.  But  there  was  grave  danger  in  the  imperial  recog- 
nition of  the  supreme  papal  supremacy.  Evidently  in  the 
eyes  of  Gregory  this  step  was  a  necessit3\      But  it  is,  never- 


282  The  History  of  Christianity 

theless,  quite  certain  that  his  harshness  in  a  measure  defeated 
his  aims.  The  friends  of  the  emperor  were  shocked  and  an- 
gered at  the  treatment  he  had  received  and  were  moved  to 
pity,  while  the  partisans  of  Gregory  thought  that  he  had 
pushed  his  advantage  too  far. 

In  summary  we  may  say  that  the  victory  of  the  papacy 
was  ineffaceable;  the  victory  of  Pope  Gregory  was  soon 
turned  to  defeat,  and  he  finally  died  far  from  home  and 
friends  with  the  bitter  words  upon  his  lips :  "  I  have  loved 
righteousness  and  hated  iniquity,  therefore  I  die  in  exile." 
All  his  grand  schemes  seemed  to  have  fallen  in  ruin  about 
him.  After  Canossa  the  conflict  continued  for  more  than 
forty  years.  Henry  IV  redeemed  himself  from  the  charge 
of  being  weak  and  wicked  and  changeable.  Trial  hardened 
him  and  brought  out  his  really  fine  qualities,  and  proved  him 
very  much  of  a  man.  But  he  too  died  almost  alone  and  his 
body  was  refused  burial  in  consecrated  ground.  He  lived, 
like  Henry  II  of  England,  to  see  his  sons  go  over  to  his 
enemies  and  lift  their  hands  in  rebellion  against  him. 
Broken-hearted,  he  too  passed  to  the  grave  thinking  that  all 
he  had  contended  for  throughout  his  life  was  lost.  Henry 
V,  who  betrayed  his  father  and  went  over  to  the  enemy, 
finally  violated  the  pledges  he  had  given  to  the  pope  and 
took  up  the  cause  in  which  his  father  had  spent  his  life. 
After  war  had  done  its  grievous  work  and  laid  waste  the 
fertile  fields  of  Germany  and  Italy,  the  strongholds  of  the 
contending  parties,  in  turn  taken  and  pillaged,  the  churches 
burned,  and  ruin  and  poverty  spread  throughout  the  land, 
both  parties  grew  tired  of  the  conflict  and  a  diet  was  suc- 
moned  at  Wurtzburg,  in  1121,  to  arrange  terms  for  peace. 
After  a  session  of  eight  days,  the  emperor  and  the  diet  ac- 
cepted the  principal  basis  of  a  settlement  which  had  been 
proposed  by  a  committee  chosen  at  Mainz.  This  arrange- 
ment was  reported  to  the  pope  by  envoys  and  was  approved 
by  him.  He  stated  in  a  letter  to  the  emperor  that  "  the 
church  had  no  desire  to  diminish  the  imperial  rights,  but 
only  to  retain  her  own.  She  was  not  covetous  of  royal  or 
imperial  splendor;  let  the  church  enjoy  what  belonged  to 
Christ,  and  the  emperor  what  belonged  to  himself."     As  a 


Canossa  283 

result  of  this  amicable  statement  on  the  part  of  the  pope, 
a  council  was  summoned  to  meet  at  Worms  on  September 
8th,  1122.     To  this  council  the  entire  clergy  of  the  empire 
was   summoned   together  witli   "  dukes,   counts,   and  all   the 
faithful  laity."     The  assembly  which  gathered  in  response 
to   this   call  was   a  very   large   one   and  their  deliberations 
lasted  over  a  period  of   eight  days.     At  the  close  of  the 
debate  which  took  place  between  the  representatives  of  the 
emperor  and  the  pope,  a  compromise  was  finally  agreed  upon. 
The   declaration   which   received   the   signature   of   the   em- 
peror was   as   follows :     "  I,   Henry,   by   the  grace   of  God 
Roman   emperor,    out    of   love    of   God,    the   Holy   Roman 
Church,  and  the  Lord  Pope  Calixtus,  do  surrender  to  the 
holy  apostles,  Peter  and  Paul,  and  the  holy  Catholic  Church, 
all  investiture  by  ring  and  staff;  and  I  ordain  that  in  all 
churches  of  my  realm  canonical  elections  and  free  consecra- 
tions shall  take  place.      The  possessions  and  royal  rights  of 
St.  Peter,  whereof  he  had  been  deprived  from  the  beginning 
of  this  strife  to  the  present  da}^  either  in  my  father's  time 
or  in  my  own  reign,  I  restore  to  the  Holy  Roman  Church, 
so  far  as  they  are  in  my  power;  where  they  are  not,  I  will 
honestly  help  to  procure  their  restoration."     The  original 
declaration  of  Pope  Calixtus  has  been  strangely  lost,  but  it 
was  about  as  follows :  "  that  the  pope  conceded  to  his  be- 
loved son,  Henry,  by  the  grace  of  God  Roman  emperor,  that 
in  the  German  Kingdom  the  election  of  bishops  and  abbots 
holding  of  the  empire  should  be  made  in  the  presence  of  the 
emperor  or  his   commissioner,   free   from  force   or  bribery, 
with  an  appeal  in  disputed  cases  to  the  metropolitan  and 
bishops  of  the  province.      The  elected  prelate  was  then  to 
receive    all    temporalities,    save    those    held    directly    of    the 
Roman  See,  by  the  touch  of  the  scepter  and  was  faithfully 
to  discharge  all  duties  thereto  belonging."     After  these  dec- 
larations had  been  signed  and  read  in  the  council,  the  bishop 
of  Ostia  celebrated  mass,  administered  the  elements  to  the 
emperor,  and  gave  him  the  kiss  of  peace.     In  this  manner, 
Henry  was  restored  to  the  church  without  any  formal  action 
on  his  part,  and  the  breach  between  the  pope  and  the  em- 
peror was  finally  healed.     The  papacy  was  finally  emanci- 


284  The  History  of  Christianity 

pated  from  control  by  the  emperor  in  purely  ecclesiastical 
functions.  Thus  a  part  of  that  for  which  Gregory  fought 
was  solemnly  ratified  as  the  Law  of  Christendom. 

The  concordat  of  Worms  must  be  recognized  as  a  great 
advance  in  political  righteousness  despite  its  many  short- 
comings and  fallacies.  States  in  the  modern  sense  had  not 
yet  been  formed,  and  the  institution  through  which  society 
might  form  a  provisional  order  must  be  recognized  as  a  good 
and  legitimate  institution.  This  was  what  Gregory  VII  or- 
ganized and  what  the  people  of  Europe  made  legitimate 
by  their  consent.  It  is  the  church  historian  Coleridge  who 
says :  "  During  the  Middle  Ages,  the  papacy  was  another 
name  for  a  confederation  of  learned  men  in  the  west  of 
Europe  against  the  barbarism  and  ignorance  of  the  times." 
The  papacy  derived  its  right  to  rule  Europe  from  the  acqui- 
escence of  Europe. 

In  summary,  the  Concordat  of  Worms  shows  that  a  dual 
government  was  attempting  to  rule  the  Christian  world. 
The  dream  of  universal  dominion  over  the  secular  interests 
of  men  was,  in  the  eleventh  century,  embodied  in  the  person 
of  German  princes  elevated  to  the  imperial  dignity  by  the 
consent  of  the  other  great  lords  of  that  portion  of  Europe. 
The  Almighty  was  represented  on  earth  by  another  poten- 
tate who,  in  the  theory  of  the  church,  held  unlimited  sway 
over  the  souls  of  men.  This  was  an  unequal  partnership, 
and  such  distribution  of  sovereignty  was  practically  impos- 
sible. The  first  round  in  the  struggle  of  elimination  culmi- 
nated in  compromise,  the  Concordat  of  Worms. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 

THE    REVOLT    OF    THE    ITALIAN    STATES 

THE  mediaeval  drama  which  was  staged  by  Gregory  VII 
has  reached  the  end  of  the  first  act.  The  second  act  is 
in  the  nature  of  an  interlude  which  serves  to  hasten  the 
development  of  the  plot  and  to  bring  about  the  culmination 
of  the  play.  The  struggles  of  the  Italian  states  for  their 
liberties  indirectly  forced  the  decision  of  the  contest  between 
the  papacy  and  the  empire,  and  resulted  in  the  assertion  of 
political  principles  which,  especially  in  England,  were  made 
the  foundation  of  modern  liberty.  The  cities  which  took 
part  in  this  momentous  struggle  now  beginning  were  for  the 
most  part  located  in  Lombardy,  but  those  of  Piedmont,  Ven- 
ice, Liguria,  Tuscany,  the  States  of  the  Church,  Naples,  and 
Sicily  were  also  involved. 

The  distinctive  characteristics  of  the  municipal  towns, 
during  the  Roman  regime,  did  not  rest  upon  the  basis  of 
origin  or  geographical  position,  but  upon  the  peculiar  con- 
stitution of  the  city  to  which  the  term  was  applied.  Munici- 
pal rights  were  at  first  granted  by  Rome  to  certain  cities  in 
Latium  and  Italy.  As  her  conquests  increased,  these  mu- 
nicipia  were  extended  beyond  Italy  and  may  be  found  in  the 
far  East,  in  Egypt,  Macedonia,  Greece,  Africa,  Spain,  and 
Gaul.  The  word  municipium  has  not  at  all  times  been  iden- 
tical in  its  meaning.  The  dominant  idea  of  a  municipal 
town,  however,  is  a  town  to  which  liberty  of  legislation  and 
freedom  of  internal  administration  has  been  accorded.  The 
greater  number  of  municipia,  although  they  enjoyed  the  free 
exercise  of  their  own  institutions,  had,  like  the  colonies,  a 
political  system  something  analogous  to  that  of  Rome  her- 
self. The  assembly  of  the  citizens  of  each  municipality  had 
and  exercised  whatever  sovereign  rights  had  been  bestowed 
bv  Rome,  and  elected  the  chief  magistrates.  These  were 
-^  285 


286  The  History  of  Christianity 

usually  two  in  number  and  were  called  duumviri.  They 
roughly  corresponded  to  the  Roman  consuls  and  had  similar 
duties,  only  on  a  smaller  and  wholly  local  scale.  Besides, 
each  municipality  had  a  number  of  subordinate  officers, 
aediles,  censors,  and  quaestors,  for  their  police  and  local 
finance.  These  were  designated  to  maintain  the  balance  of 
power  in  the  municipality  just  as  they  did  in  Rome.  The 
legal  system  of  each  was  a  close  copy  of  the  mother  city. 
After  Tiberius  had  taken  away  from  the  citizens  of  Rome  the 
right  of  electing  the  officers  and  carrying  on,  through  their 
comitia,  the  civil  government,  and  vested  these  powers  in 
the  senate,  the  municipalities  throughout  the  empire  followed 
suit.  Each  seems  to  have  created  a  class  called  "  curiales  " 
or  "  decuriones  "  (a  sort  of  senate)  in  whom  was  vested  all 
powers  which  were  previously  placed  in  the  whole  body  of 
citizens.  This  aristocratic  class  now  chose  all  the  officers 
and  carried  on  all  the  government  not  reserved  to  the  pro- 
consul or  other  Roman  magistrates.  They  formed  a  local 
aristocracy  of  wealth  requiring  for  membership  some  four 
thousand  dollars'  worth  of  property.  But  every  son  of  a 
•decurion  was  by  reason  of  his  birth  a  member  of  this  class, 
so  that  it  was  recruited  in  the  manner  of  a  close  corporation. 
It  was  summoned  on  the  Kalends  of  March  for  the  purpose 
of  choosing  municipal  officers.  The  duumviri  or  consuls 
were  here  chosen  to  hold  office  for  one  year.  Besides  the  mu- 
nicipal officers  chosen  by  the  decuriones,  there  was  another 
very  important  magistrate  chosen  by  the  citizens  at  large 
for  a  term  of  five  years.  This  was  the  Defensor  Civitatis 
(Urbis).  He  acted  as  a  standing  advocate  for  the  city 
against  the  oppression  of  the  provincial  government.  He 
had  to  be  a  well  known  and  highly  respected  man.  He  stood 
to  the  inhabitants  of  the  municipality  in  somewhat  the  same 
relation  that  the  ancient  tribune  of  the  people  did  to  the 
early  Roman  states. 

It  may  be  reasonably  doubted  whether  the  principles  of 
freedom  and  justice  which  led  to  the  establishment  of  these 
municipal  institutions  were  fully  carried  out  in  effect.  They 
had,  however,  a  short  golden  age.  While  the  emperor  was 
gradually  monopolizing  the  authority  that  belonged  to  the 


Origin  of  Municipal  Government  287 

ancient  comitia,  the  leading  citizens  of  the  municipalities 
throughout  Rome  discovered  that  they  were  powerless  in 
national  politics,  and  transferred  their  attention  to  local 
administration.  These  municipalities,  unmolested  by  cen- 
tral government,  flourished.  Membership  of  the  decuriones 
or  governing  body  was  eagerly  sought  after  and  held  as  a 
high  honor.  This  was  especially  true  from  the  time  of  Au- 
gustus to  Constantine.  But  from  the  latter's  administration 
until  the  fall  of  the  Western  Empire,  the  resources  of  the 
central  poAver  had  diminished,  while  its  wants  steadily  in- 
creased. To  raise  the  necessary  revenue,  the  emperor  began 
to  inflict  very  heavy  taxes  upon  the  municipalities  and  the 
decuriones  were  held  responsible  for  the  collection  of  the  same 
and  their  private  estates  confiscated  to  make  up  any  deficit 
which  took  place.  "  The  position  of  the  governing  class 
thus  became  unbearable,  but  was  nevertheless  incumbent  on 
all  citizens  holding  not  less  than  twenty-five  acres  of  land. 
The  honor  of  ofl'ice  became  no  sufl^cient  compensation  for  the 
burden  of  taxation  and  the  responsibility  of  its  collection, 
and  the  decuriones  endeavored  in  every  way  to  evade  this 
law.  Laws  were  made  compelling  them  to  remain  at  home 
and  undergo  their  onerous  duties.  Under  this  the  curial 
class  steadily  decreased  in  nmnbers  and  wealth,  but  there 
was  still  in  existence,  at  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  century, 
especially  in  Gaul  and  throughout  the  valley  of  the  Po,  a 
considerable  class  of  good  family  and  fair  fortunes,  dwell- 
ing for  the  most  part  in  cities  or  country  homes  in  the  near 
neighborhood  of  cities.  These  replenished  the  church  and 
kept  up  the  politeness  and  luxury  of  the  empire."  They 
formed  the  nobility  of  the  senatorial  rank  still  to  be  found 
at  the  time  of  the  invasions. 

When  the  Germans  overflowed  the  long  established  bound- 
aries of  the  empire  and  took  possession  of  the  land,  they 
found  the  municipalities  or  cities  scattered  everywhere. 
Some  of  them  were  utterly  destroyed  during  the  process  of 
conquest.  Most  of  them  lived  on  in  a  shrunken  sort  of  ex- 
istence. The  Germans  knew  nothing  of  cities  or  city  life. 
They  settled  down  in  the  country  leaving  the  cities  pretty 
much  to  themselves.     At  the  time  of  Charles  the  Great  by 


288  The  History  of  Christianity 

f&r  the  larger  number  of  the  Germans  were  still  living  on  the 
soil  continuing  their  old-time  method  of  life.  The  noble 
was  in  the  castle  which  crowned  some  neighboring  height. 
The  body  of  his  free  followers  were  clustered  at  the  foot  of 
the  hill  in  a  rude  sort  of  a  village  or  settlement.  The  vio- 
lence of  the  times  compelled  them  to  enclose  these  settlements 
with  walls,  but  at  first  they  were  entirely  exposed  to  the  in- 
roads of  wandering  enemies.  The  old  municipalities  closed 
up  the  breaches  in  their  walls  made  by  the  barbarians  and 
continued  for  a  time  the  life  which  had  been  thus  rudely  in- 
terrupted. But  the  insecurity  of  the  roads  destroyed  com- 
merce and  hindered  travel,  so  that  the  municipalities  which 
depended  upon  these  sources  of  wealth  for  subsistence 
gradually  decayed  and  perished.  But  the  knowledge  of  this 
fonn  of  government  was  never  lost.  The  Defensor  Urbis 
and  the  lower  municipal  magistrates  lived  on  throughout  the 
early  Frankish  rule.  They  did  not  retain  all  their  powers, 
it  is  true,  but  they  served  as  a  pattern  for  later-day  com- 
munal governments.  The  functions  of  the  Defensor  Urbis 
were  frequently  exercised  by  the  bishop.  Indeed,  it  quite 
frequently  happened  that  the  bishop  was  elected  to  this 
office  and  performed  its  duties  in  addition  to  those  of  his 
own.  The  bishop  came,  in  this  way,  to  be  as  much  the; 
civil  governor  of  his  city  as  the  count  was  in  the  rural  dis- 
trict. Under  the  administration  of  Charles  the  Great  and  his 
successors,  the  city  in  Italy  became  the  natural  unit  of 
administration.  Country  districts  were  under  the  control 
of  a  count  whose  administration  very  generally  extended  over 
the  neighboring  city  which  was  considered  as  located  within 
his  jurisdiction.  In  case  it  was  not,  then  it  usually  be- 
longed to  a  bishop.  Whether  bishop  or  count,  the  populace 
had  nothing  to  do  with  the  government.  The  count  or 
bishop  collected  the  taxes,  appointed  the  officials,  kept  order 
and  punished  offenders.  Perhaps  a  few  of  the  minor  offices 
were  still  in  the  gift  of  the  people  and  this  served  to  keep 
alive  the  old-time  right  of  election.  "  This  was  a  great 
revolution  in  the  internal  history  of  cities,"  says  Hallam, 
"  and  one  which  generally  led  to  the  discontinuance  of  this 
popular  institution;  so  that  after  the  reign  of  Charlemagne, 


Origin  of  Municipal  Government  289 

if  not  earlier,  we  may  perhaps  consider  a  municipality  choos- 
ing its  own  officers  as  an  exception,  though  not  a  very  infre- 
quent one,  to  the  general  usage." 

During  the  time  of  the  old  Roman  Empire,  Italy  was  pre- 
eminently the  country  of  cities.     Milan,  Boulogne,  Capua, 
rivaled  the  splendors  of  Rome,  while  others  of  importance 
were  scattered  over  the  entire  peninsula.     While  the  Ostro- 
goths were  in  possession  these  cities  were  rebuilt  and  others 
added  to  their  number.     Then  came  the  decay  of  the  empire 
and  the  conquest  of  Italy  by  the  Lombards.     It  has  long 
been  a  question  as  to  what  extent  these  invaders  destroyed 
the    cities,    but   it    seems    certain    that    something    of    their 
old   character  and  importance  remained.     Feudalism   never 
obtained  a  firm  hold  upon  Italy  and  it  was  cast  off  by  that 
country  with  comparative  ease  long  before  the  other  nations 
of  Europe  succeeded  in  freeing  themselves.     This  was  doubt- 
less due  to  the  influence  of  the   cities.      Throughout  Lom- 
bard and  French  rule,  every  city  in  Italy  together  with  its 
adjacent  district  was  subject  to  the  government  of  a  count 
who  was  himself  subordinate  to  the  duke  or  marquis  of  the 
province.     The  early  German  emperors  followed  the  custom 
of  cutting  away  country  districts  from  the  towns  and  be- 
stowing them  by  a  feudal  tenure  upon  rural  lords  to  whom 
they  gave  the  title  of  counts.      In  this  way  the  authority 
of  the  original  officers  was  curtailed  and  confined  almost  to 
the  walls  of  their  own  cities.     In  many  cases   the  bishops 
obtained  a  grant  of  the  temporal  power,  and  exercised  the 
functions    which    had    previously    belonged    to    the    counts. 
By  the  middle  of  the  ninth  century  nearly  every  city  in  Italy 
had  surrounded  itself  with  a  wall  and  assumed  the  right  of 
self-defense.     They  were  successful  in  beating  off  the  incur- 
sions of  the  Magyars  and  on  account  of  this  began  to  assume 
the  airs   of  independence.     Their  bishops  levied  taxes,  dis- 
pensed justice,   and   commanded  the  military  without   con- 
sulting the   old-time  count.     The   cities   thus  became   inde- 
pendent of  all  save  the  authority  of  the  emperor.     Meantime 
a  lively   commerce   sprang  up    and   industries   grew   apace. 
The  inhabitants  began  to  group  themselves  by  their  occupa- 
tion into  arts  or  guilds  in  order  that  they  might  be  the  bet- 


290  The  History  of  Christianity 

ter  protected  from  the  grasping  hand  of  the  feudal  lord. 
As  yet  they  had  no  political  power  save  a  nominal  share  in 
the  choice  of  the  bishops  and,  possibly,  the  election  of  the 
minor  officers  of  the  city.  But  it  was  already  easy  to  see 
what  would  be  the  outcome  of  this  popular  awakening.  As 
soon  as  the  people  became  conscious  of  their  power  it  would 
take  a  greater  authority  than  that  of  a  peace-loving  bishop 
to  keep  them  from  asserting  it.  Take,  for  instance,  INIilan, 
the  largest  and  most  prosperous  of  all  the  Italian  cities, 
with  her  300,000  inhabitants  and  numerous  guilds  of  arti- 
sans. Her  bishop  had  become  practically  absolute,  but  what 
would  he  do  in  case  these  people  should  act  politically  as  they 
had  already  acted  industrially.'' 

Out  of  the  confusion  which  accompanied  the  conflict  in  the 
authority  between  the  count,  the  bishop,  and  the  duke,  not 
unmixed  with  the  popular  claim  to  control  through  the  old 
Defensor  Urbis,  there  grew  up  another  power,  first  tenta- 
tively here  and  there,  then  triumphantly  everywhere,  in  Lom- 
bardy.  This  was  the  commune,  an  organized  popular  move- 
ment which  had  its  origin  in  the  various  guilds  of  artisans. 
These  guilds  consisted  of  all  those  who  within  certain  limits 
exercised  the  trades  common  to  the  time.  The  members  of 
a  guild  fell  into  sharply  defined  grades:  (1)  The  appren- 
tice, bound  by  contract  to  a  master,  for  a  definite  term  of 
years,  during  which  time  he  received  his  living  and  his  in- 
struction and  paid  such  work  as  he  could  do  together  with 
money  fee;  (2)  the  journeyman  or  skilled  laborer  working 
for  wage;  (3)  the  master,  who  had  given  sufficient  and  for- 
mal evidence  of  his  capacity  as  a  workman  and  his  credit 
as  a  man.  These  guilds  chose  their  own  officers  and  made 
their  own  laws.  They  kept  themselves  in  harmony  with  the 
feudal  lords  or  bishop  of  the  city  through  their  seigniorial 
official  or  prevot.  When  these  several  guilds  made  common 
■cause,  then  the  artisan  class  came  forward  into  positive 
political  action.  They  embraced  within  their  numbers  the 
vast  body  of  the  lower  order  of  citizens.  Above  them  was 
the  class  of  merchants,  wholesale  dealers,  and  monej'  lenders, 
who  formed  the  dominant  aristocracy  of  the  city.  These 
new  artisan  groups,  united  for  mutual  benefit,  formed  the 


Conflict  Between  People  and  Rulers  291 

communes.  These  were  permeated  with  a  democratic  spirit 
and  pushed  to  active  endeavor  by  industrial  and  commercial 
interests.  They  became  the  forerunners  of  the  modern  soci- 
ety and  state. 

The  internal  history  of  the  Italian  cities  during  the  tenth 
and  eleventh  centuries  consists  in  a  large  degree  in  the  efforts 
of  the  great  laboring  democracy  to  work  its  way  up  ta 
political  equality  with  the  controlling  aristocratic  element. 
At  the  close  of  the  period  this  movement  was  generally  suc- 
cessful and  democracy  forced  its  way  to  recognition.  The 
struggle  was  very  largely  one  between  city  and  country. 
The  old  feudal  state,  which  took  the  place  of  the  Roman, 
was  built  upon  agricultural  interests  and  an  aristocratic 
spirit,  while  the  city  life  was  from  the  first  popular  and 
industrial.  A  conflict  was  sure  to  come.  The  city  was 
being  continually  reinforced  by  every  new  industry  and 
every  intellectual  acquisition,  while  the  country  was  contin- 
ually weakened  by  the  desertion  of  their  rural  population  to 
the  more  magnetic  centers  of  the  new  life.  The  country  was 
conservative. 

The  conflict  between  the  people  and  their  rulers  began  at 
Cremona  in  1003,  when  the  bishop,  Landulf,  was  driven  out 
of  the  city  and  his  castle  destroyed.  This  movement  spread, 
until  by  the  end  of  the  eleventh  century  a  municipal  govern- 
ment of  the  new  pattern  is  to  be  found  in  every  Lombard 
city.  The  conflict  between  the  popes  and  the  emperors  over 
investitures  aided  in  this  development.  Both  popes  and  em- 
perors were  looking  for  allies  and  were  willing  to  pay  for 
them  by  grants  of  privileges.  The  cities  were  not  slow  to 
take  advantage  of  this.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  the  aris- 
tocracy and  nobility  of  the  city,  after  a  short  conflict,  threw 
in  their  lot  with  the  workmen  and  made  common  cause 
against  the  rulers.  This  greatly  strengthened  the  commons, 
as  it  brought  both  wealth  and  political  experience  to  their 
side.  It  was  also  the  part  of  wisdom  for  the  upper  classes 
thus  to  act,  as  it  gave  them  a  share  in  the  management  of 
the  new  movement  which  they  were  powerless  to  check. 
When  the  consuls  emerged  for  the  first  time  from  the  political 
chaos  at  Milan,  early  in  the  twelfth  century,  and  appear  in 


292  The  History  of  Christianity 

the  public  documents  as  the  administrative  magistrates  of 
the  city,  they  are  plainly  distinguished  as  members  of  the 
three  orders,  the  upper  nobility,  the  lesser  nobility,  and  the 
merchant  guilds. 

The  consular  constitution  presents  a  great  variety  of 
forms  in  the  different  cities,  but  there  were  three  essential 
elements,  consuls,  a  council,  and  a  parliament.  The  consuls 
varied  in  niunber.  There  were  twelve  in  Milan,  six  at  Pisa 
and  Genoa,  and  four  at  Florence.  They  were  invested  with 
executive  and  judiciary  powers,  the  functions  of  which  they 
usually  divided  among  themselves,  so  that  some  led  the  army, 
while  others  presided  over  the  courts ;  others  still  performed 
administrative  duties.  Next  to  the  consuls  was  a  senate 
made  up  of  persons  elected  from  the  whole  body  of  citizens. 
They  formed  an  advisory  body  and  had  to  be  consulted  in 
all  important  business.  At  the  base  of  this  constitution  was 
the  general  assembly  of  free  citizens  or  parliament  gather- 
ing by  wards  at  the  sound  of  the  bell  from  the  belfry  on 
the  public  square.  This  was  the  real  sovereign  power  and 
judge  in  the  last  resort.  It  was  irregularly  called  and  was 
an  unwieldy  body  at  best,  controlled,  like  a  mob,  by  factions. 
Sometimes  it  did  good ;  more  often  evil.  But  it  evidenced  the 
principle  of  popular  government  and  trained  the  great  body 
of  citizens  in  political  methods. 

This  consular  constitution  looks  singularly  well  on  paper; 
it  leaves  almost  nothing  to  be  wished  for,  but  if  we  examine 
more  closely  we  will  discover  that  this  new  organization  was 
weakened  by  class  distinction  and  the  local  feuds  that  were 
bred  thereby.  There  was  no  town  so  small  that  it  did  not 
have  its  noble  class,  its  bourgeois  proprietor  class,  and  its 
industrial  class  or  parliament.  Even  the  nobility  was  not 
united,  but  split  into  the  upper  and  lower  nobility.  All  this 
was  natural  enough.  Prejudices,  castes,  families,  and  guilds 
segregated  the  society  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  these  could 
not  be  overcome  in  a  day.  The  new  constitution  did  not  ex- 
tend the  privileges  of  citizenship  to  all  classes.  The  fran- 
chise was  not  made  universal.  The  lower  guilds  and  the 
plebs  were  not  given  a  share  in  the  government.  The  big 
bell  did  not  ring  for  them  to  assemble.     This  change  of  so- 


Republican  Revolutions  293 

clety  within  the  city  and  the  withholding  of  citizenship  from 
a  large  number  meant  stormy  weather  ahead.  Democracy 
brought  not  peace  but  a  sword. 

Throughout  the  eleventh  century  the  cities  were  in  con- 
tinual conflict  with  each  other.     This  was  to  be  expected,  as 
it  was  in  accordance  with  the  manners  of  the  age.     But  even 
here  we  discover  the  traces  of  the  change  which  has  taken 
place.     The  annals   speak  not   of  leaders,  of  dukes,   or  of 
counts  and  their  doings,  but  rather  of  the  transactions  of 
the  people.     It  is  the  people  of  Pisa  that  gain  a  victory  over 
the  people  of  Lucca  in  1002.     The  people  of  Pisa  and  Genoa 
conquer  the  people   of   Sardinia  in   1006.     The   citizens   of 
Pavia    and    Milan    engage    in    war   in    1051.     They    raised 
armies,  made  alliances,  hired  foreign  troops,  and  m  every 
way  acted  as  independent  states.     During  the  eighty  years 
which  followed  the  coronation  of  Otto  I  (962),  twelve  Ger- 
man invasions  of  Italy  were  made  to  enforce  imperial  claims 
and  compel  the  obedience  of  the  Italian  cities.      These  gen- 
erally came  to  nothing.     Italian  lords  paid  tribute  to  the 
emperors,   as    to   their   suzerains,   but   were   otherwise   free. 
The  cities  were  wont  even  to  refuse  this  tribute.     The  war 
between   emperors    and   popes    increased   this   independence. 
The  citizens  of  towns  lost  all  national  feeling  and  confined 
themselves   wholly   to    the  narrow   circles   of  local   activity. 
They  engaged  in  struggles  with  the  rural  counts  and  reduced 
them  to  a  state  of  subjection.     They  overthrew  the  smaller 
towns  in  their  neighborhood  that  had  imitated  themselves  m 
establishing  municipalities.     These  they  added  to  their  own 
territory.     By  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century  the  Marquis 
of  Montferrat  was  the  only  nobleman  who  had  not  submitted 
to   some   city.     The  rural  nobility  have  been  compelled  to 
reside  within  some  citv  and  to  give  their  strength  to  the  di- 
rection of  municipal  affairs.     Within  the  strong  walls  and 
deep  trenches  and  in  the  midst  of  their  well-peopled  streets 
the  industrious  townsmen  dwelt  secure  from  the  hcense  of 
armed  pillagers  and  the  oppression  of  feudal  lords.     These 
artisans  assumed  the  right  of  bearing  arms  in  the  defense 
of  their  citv,  although  they  were  looked  upon  with  contempt 
by  the  mUitary  land-holders  of  the  country.     The  citizens 


294  The  History  of  Christianity 

were  divided  into  companies  in  accordance  with  their  crafts, 
each  company  having  a  tribune  or  standard-bearer  about 
whom  they  ralHed  in  the  market-place  in  case  an  enemy 
threatened.  While  these  cities  were  thus  growing  rapidly 
and  flourishing  in  their  new-found  freedom,  their  restlessness 
and  ambition  did  not  confine  themselves  within  their  own  city 
walls  and  to  their  legitimate  advancement.  They  reached 
out  and  tyrannized  over  their  weaker  neighbors,  snatching 
their  liberties  from  them  instead  of  extending  them  with  their 
own.  The  same  narrow  and  fatal  policy  which  had  wrecked 
the  liberty  of  the  freedom-loving  cities  of  ancient  Greece  now 
took  possession  of  Milan.  She  conducted  herself  in  such  an 
overbearing  manner  toward  her  weaker  neighbors  that  they 
formed  a  combination  against  her  and  overthrew  her. 

During  all  this  time  the  sovereignty  of  the  empire  had 
dragged  on  a  wasted  and  shrunken  existence,  but  was  in 
theory  always  acknowledged.  The  name  of  the  emperor 
appeared  in  the  public  acts  of  each  of  the  Italian  cities  and 
also  graced  their  coins.  Whenever  an  emperor  made  a  jour- 
ney into  Italy  the  courts  of  the  several  cities  where  he  visited 
adjourned  and  all  officers  held  themselves  subject  to  his  com- 
mand. The  customary  supplies,  under  the  name  of  fodrum 
regale,  were  furnished  in  abundance.  A  castle  for  the  em- 
peror's residence  was  furnished  by  the  wily  citizens  outside 
the  fortifications  where  the  noise  of  the  city  streets  would 
not  disturb  his  slumbers.  Here  their  royal  visitor  had  to 
be  content  to  stay.  Such  was  the  condition  of  Italy  when 
Frederic  Barbarossa,  the  nephew  of  the  emperor  Conrad, 
the  first  of  the  great  family  of  the  Hohenstaufens,  assumed 
the  throne  of  Germany.  He  was  a  man  of  commanding 
ability  and  tried  valor.  But  his  temper  was  severe  and  arbi- 
trary in  the  extreme,  which  fact  made  him  a  rather  difficult 
man  to  please.  Absolutely  honest  and  trustworthy,  he 
claimed  never  to  have  violated  an  oath,  broken  a  promise, 
or  forgiven  an  enemy.  He  was  undoubtedly  the  greatest 
man  who  appeared  on  the  mediaeval  stage,  the  very  embodi- 
ment of  mediaeval  imperialism.  He  proclaimed  the  loftiest 
notions  of  his  supremacy  over  all  other  authorities ;  that  his 
power  was  directly  from  God  and  in  no  way  from  the  pope. 


Arnold  of  Brescia  295 

To  assert  that  his  authority  came  to  him  in  any  way  through 
the  successor  of  St.  Peter  was,  in  the  opinion  of  Frederic, 
both  blasphemy  and  treason.  His  determination  was  to  es- 
tabHsh  the  empire  on  the  same  lines  of  authority  and  power 
as  those  of  Charles  the  Great.  In  1154,  he  descended  into 
Italy  to  enforce  his  feudal  claims. 

The  attempt  of  Barbarossa  to  enforce  his  feudal  claims 
upon  the  cities  of  Italy  brought  about  the  Republican  revo- 
lution. In  this  great  movement  there  are  two  scenes  of 
paramount  importance:  (1)  the  republicanism  of  Arnold  of 
Brescia  at  war  with  both  emperor  and  pope,  and  (2)  the 
church  lending  its  influence  to  the  cities  to  undermine  the 
power  of  the  emperor. 

(1)  Arnold  of  Brescia  was  born  of  German  parents  in 
the  Italian  city  of  Brescia  which  is  located  some  forty  miles 
east  of  Milan.  His  parents  were  of  the  noble  class  and 
Arnold  had  the  advantage  of  excellent  training.  When 
about  nineteen  years  of  age  he  went  to  Paris,  being  drawn 
to  that  greatest  of  mediaeval  universities  by  the  fame  of  the 
great  schoolman  and  philosopher,  Abelard,  who  now  had  the 
eyes  of  the  learned  world  turned  to  him.  His  was  undoubt- 
edly the  most  brilliant  mind  of  the  mediaeval  age.  Before 
he  had  reached  his  twenty-fifth  year  he  had  overthrown  the 
champions  of  the  realistic  school  and  established  himself  as 
a  nominalistic  philosopher  at  the  University  of  Notre  Dame. 
I  here  attempt  no  sketch  of  Abelard,  but  wish  only  to  set 
forth  his  teaching  for  the  light  thrown  upon  the  political  life 
of  the  times.  We  have  seen  how  "  the  third  estate  "  had 
gradually  developed  throughout  the  cities  of  Ital^'  till  it 
threatened  the  very  life  of  the  empire.  During  all  these 
years  democracy  had  forged  ahead  in  a  dogged  sort  of  way 
without  being  able  to  give  any  philosophic  reason  for  its 
existence.  Life  had  been  hard  and  unpoetic  for  democracy, 
with  no  opportunity  for  learning  and  no  leisure  for  philoso- 
phy. In  the  city  the  common  people  labored  for  a  scant 
enough  living  at  the  tasks  which  were  looked  upon  with  con- 
tempt by  nobles  and  rich  burgers  alike.  In  the  country  the 
great  mass  of  the  people  were  pressed  down  with  their  feet 
in  the  mud  and  their  shoulders  bent  with  the  great  weight  of 


296  The  History  of  Christianity 

the  whole  feudal  society  which  they  carried.  The  empire 
had  a  Dante  to  cast  into  literary  form  its  God-given  right 
to  rule  mankind.  The  papacy  had  produced  a  St.  Augus- 
tine to  formalize,  and  a  Hildebrand  to  enforce  its  claim  to 
rule  not  only  the  souls  but  the  bodies  of  men.  Meantime 
democracy,  burdened  as  it  was  with  the  weight  of  both  em- 
pire and  papacy,  struggled  on  up  toward  political  recog- 
nition with  no  one  to  sing  its  praises  or  to  voice  its  divine 
right  "  to  a  place  in  the  sun."  Then  it  was  that  Abelard 
appeared  as  the  champion  of  the  common  man.  He  not  only 
denied  the  claims  of  the  realists,  but  utterly  overthrew  them. 
He  ridiculed  the  imperial  theory  of  government  and  showed 
the  folly  of  any  such  claim  in  unanswerable  argument.  This 
pleased  the  church  and  the  pope  was  ready  to  make  a  cardi- 
nal of  him.  Next  he  assailed  the  papal  theory  and  with 
equal  vehemence  and  clearness  showed  that  there  never  was 
any  universal  church,  but  only  individual  churches  made  up 
of  individual  members.  Therefore  the  popes  had  no  such 
thing  as  universal  power.  The  pope,  now,  instead  of  mak- 
ing of  Abelard  a  cardinal,  summoned  him  to  trial  as  a  here- 
tic. But  Abelard  was  a  profound  philosopher  and  a  rea- 
soner  beyond  compare.  He  placed  all  government  with  the 
people  where  it  belonged  and  claimed  that  the  only  valid  law, 
whether  in  church  or  state,  was  that  made  by  the  people  as 
a  whole,  and  that  the  emperor  and  the  pope  were  nothing 
more  than  the  servants  of  the  people  to  be  chosen  and  dis- 
missed by  them.  Thus  he  furnished  to  democracy  its  philos- 
ophy, its  God-ordained  right  to  exist  and  govern  itself.  Yet 
Abelard  was  a  theorist  and  idealist  rather  than  a  practical 
man  of  affairs.  He  never  put  forth  an  effort  to  see  his 
philosophy  put  into  practice,  and  when  he  was  challenged 
by  the  church  he  recanted. 

Arnold  became  an  ardent  disciple  and  friend  of  Abelard. 
He  accepted  with  his  whole  heart  and  soul  the  views  of  his 
great  teacher.  In  one  respect  he  was  superior  to  his  mas- 
ter. His  German  blood  gave  to  him  a  steadfastness  and 
tenacity  of  purpose  which  his  friend  lacked.  He  reasoned 
that  if  the  right  to  rule  was  vested  in  the  people  themselves, 
and  not  in  either  emperor  or  pope,  then  emperor  and  pope 


Abelard  297 

were  both  usurpers  and  as  such  should  be  deposed  and  the 
people  reinvested  with  their  rights.  With  Arnold,  to  believe 
this,  was  to  at  once  endeavor  to  put  the  principle  in  force. 
He  returned  to  his  native  city  where  he  was  made  provost 
of  a  foundation  of  Canons  Regular.  Here  he  very  quickly 
became  influential  both  in  the  spiritual  and  political  life  of 
the  town.  He  had  many  of  the  characteristics  of  his  bril- 
liant teacher:  a  love  of  morality,  a  restless  vanity  and  an 
acute  and  critical  mind.  He  had  a  practical  side  that  was 
not  a  characteristic  of  Abelard.  He  preached  that  "  priests 
were  to  live  on  tithes  and  free  offerings  of  the  faithful ;  that 
bishops  were  to  renounce  their  regalia  and  monks  their  lands, 
and  the  laity  only  should  rule  the  state."  The  outcome  of 
this  would  be  to  reduce  the  powerful  Gregorian  clergy  to  the 
primitive  apostolic  poverty,  to  confiscate  their  wealth,  and 
to  deprive  them  of  all  secular  power.  But  this  did  not  make 
him  a  champion  of  the  imperial  cause.  He  also  aimed  at 
the  reform  of  the  civil  power.  He  vested  the  government 
in  the  laity  and  not  in  the  emperor.  His  ideal  was  a  great 
Christian  republic  governed  by  a  popular  assembly.  He  thus 
vested  the  right  of  governing,  as  I  have  previously  said,  in 
the  people  themselves  and  in  neither  pope  nor  emperor. 
This  was  a  denial  of  both  the  great  theories  of  government 
and  as  a  result  brought  upon  him  the  enmity  of  both  pope 
and  emperor.  He  found  himself  in  the  position  of  an  am- 
bitious boy  who  in  a  moment  of  exaltation  kicked  two  strong 
men  at  one  and  the  same  time.  Brescia,  under  his  leader- 
ship, cast  off  the  rule  of  Bishop  Manfred  and  became  a  re- 
public like  the  rest  of  the  Italian  cities.  Pope  Innocent  II 
championed  the  cause  of  his  deposed  bishop  and,  at  the 
Lateran  council  of  1139,  had  Arnold  deprived  of  his  bene- 
fices and  banished  from  Italy.  Arnold  went  first  to  join  his 
old  teacher  at  the  council  of  Sens  and  afterwards  followed 
him  to  Paris,  where  he  taught  in  Abelard's  school  on  Mont. 
St.  Genevieve.  But  his  doctrine  of  poverty  did  not  please 
the  clerks  that  gathered  there  and  he  was  compelled  to  retire 
to  Zurich  where  he  remained  for  a  short  time.  He  is  next 
found  preaching  throughout  upper  Subia  under  the  protec- 
tion of  Cardinal  Guido,  an  old  friend  of  the  Paris  days.     In 


298  The  History  of  Christianity 

1145  Arnold  returned  to  Rome  with  Guido  and  was  recon- 
ciled to  the  church.  He  soon  enters  upon  the  greatest  pe- 
riod of  his  life. 

While  revolution  had  changed  the  other  Italian  cities  into 
republics,  driving  out  the  tyrannical  bishops  and  counts, 
Rome,  through  the  influence  of  her  bishop,  the  sovereign 
pontiff,  had  been  saved.  Her  turn  now  came.  The  old 
Roman  spirit  of  opposition  to  the  pope  had  been  revived  by 
the  struggle  carried  on  by  Anacletus,  and  the  people  longed 
to  accomplish  for  their  city  what  had  been  done  in  Milan, 
Brescia,  and  other  cities  throughout  Italy.  They  set  up 
a  "  commune  "  in  1143  in  opposition  to  Innocent  II.  A  sen- 
ate composed  of  fifty-six  members  was  formed  and  the  sacred 
letters  S.P.Q.R.  again  appeared  in  the  public  documents, 
and  the  date  was  reckoned  from  the  restoration  of  the  sacred 
senate.  Innocent  II  kept  up  the  struggle  with  this  repub- 
lican power  until  his  death,  in  1143.  His  successor,  Celes- 
tine  II,  did  not  live  long  enough  to  accomplish  anything. 
He  was  utterly  powerless  in  the  hands  of  the  commune,  and 
died  in  March,  1144.  He  was  succeeded  by  Lucius  II  who 
tried  to  suppress  the  commune  by  force,  but  was,  instead, 
himself  thrown  down  from  the  steps  of  the  capitol  while  the 
revolution  triumphed.  Eugenius  III  was  chosen  to  the 
vacancy  made  by  the  death  of  Lucius.  He  was  a  timid  monk 
who  enjoyed  the  friendship  and  patronage  of  St.  Bernard. 
He  almost  immediately  fled  to  France,  leaving  the  government 
of  Rome  in  the  hands  of  the  commune.  Arnold  of  Brescia  now 
abandoned  his  spiritual  exercises  and  put  himself  at  the  head 
of  the  Roman  revolution.  His  hope  was  to  free  Rome  for- 
ever from  priestly  rule,  and  by  his  eloquence  he  won  over  the 
whole  city  to  his  side.  Conrad  was  appealed  to  to  concur 
and  free  the  city  from  the  alien  rule  of  the  popes  and  to 
establish  himself  in  the  ancient  rights  of  Rome,  but  he  was 
too  busy  with  his  crusades  to  pay  any  attention  to  the  sum- 
mons. Eugenius  returned  to  Rome  and  accepted  the  new 
order  of  things  himself,  acting  as  spiritual  guide  only. 

But  Frederic  Barbarossa  was  in  no  way  disposed  to  give 
up  his  claim  to  Italy  without  a  struggle.  Filled  with  great 
schemes  of  restoring  the  dignity  and  power  of  the  empire, 


Frederic  Barbarossa  ^99 

he  crossed  the  Alps  in  1154  and  proceeded  on  his  way  to 
Rome.  Italy  everywhere  received  him  with  royal  welcome 
but  this  was  not  sufficient  for  Frederic.  He  burned  and 
razed  the  cities  of  Ancona  and  Fortune  to  the  ground,  be- 
cause the  one  refused  to  submit  to  the  Marquis  of  Montferrat 
and  the  other  to  break  its  alUance  with  Milan,  which  city  was 
the  head  and  front  of  the  Lombard  independence.  The  em- 
peror might  have  seen  from  these  examples  of  stubbornness 
what  the  task  was  which  he  had  undertaken  but  he  did  not. 
At  his  first  diet,  held  at  Roncaglia  near  Piacenza,  he  received 
the  homage  of  the  barons  and  cities  of  Italy,  although  Milan 
held  sullenly  aloof.  After  he  had  given  to  the  free  cities  a 
taste  of  his  method  he  hastened  on  to  Rome  to  keep  the 
promise  which  he  had  made  to  Eugenius  III  three  years  be- 
fore. This  was  to  reduce  the  rebellious  city  in  return  for  the 
promise  of  the  imperial  crown  and  papal  support  against  his 
enemies.  When  he  drew  near  Rome  he  found  himself  con- 
fronted by  a  new  set  of  difficulties.  Eugenius  III  died  in 
1153,  in  the  very  midst  of  revolution  and  turmoil.  He  was 
succeeded  by  the  mild  and  gentle  Anastasius  IV  who  lived  on 
in  Rome  letting  the  commune  have  its  will.  In  1154,  after  a 
pontificate  of  less  than  a  year  and  a  half,  Anastasius  died  and 
an  Englishman,  Nicholas  Breakspear  by  name,  was  raised  to 
the  vacant  chair.  He  was  a  man  of  character  and  energy 
and  prepared  to  take  the  highest  views  of  papal  right.  He 
could  have  nothing  but  contempt  for  the  assumption  of 
power  on  the  part  of  the  commune.  He  immediately  took 
measures  to  destroy  this  poAver  and  reestablish  the  authority 
of  the  pope,  but  the  commune  had  held  its  own  for  ten  years 
and  was  puffed  up  over  its  reestablishment  of  the  ancient  laws 
and  liberties  of  Rome.  Street  riots  followed  any  attempt 
on  the  part  of  the  pope  to  assert  his  power.  In  one  of  these 
a  cardinal  was  slain.  As  a  last  resort  Adrian  renewed  with 
Frederic  the  Treaty  of  Constance  which  Eugenius  made. 

This  was  the  situation  which  met  Frederic  when  he  ar- 
rived at  Rome.  The  commune  sent  ambassadors  to  meet  him 
and  to  make  a  beautiful  speech  in  which  they  informed  him 
of  their  revival  of  the  ancient  splendors  of  Rome  and  their 
determination  to  hand  all  this  over  to  him  on  the  condition 


300  The  History  of  Chxistiantty 

of  receiving  a  round  sum  of  money  and  the  confirmation  of 
their  ancient  privileges.  Frederic  treated  their  pretensions 
with  scorn  and  informed  them  that  he  came  as  a  sovereign 
to  demand  and  not  as  a  suppliant  to  receive  favors.  When 
Frederic  had  thus  summarily  disposed  of  the  claims  of  the 
republic  and  dismissed  the  crestfallen  ambassadors,  he  turned 
to  the  pope  who  was  glad  enough  to  make  terms  with  him, 
and,  although  a  momentary  difficulty  arose  over  the  refusal 
of  Frederic  to  hold  Adrian's  stirrup  while  the  latter  mounted, 
an  amicable  agreement  was  entered  into  by  these  rival  dig- 
nitaries. Frederic  received  the  imperial  crown  at  St.  Peter's 
and,  in  turn,  overthrew  the  pope's  enemies  in  a  hotly  con- 
tested battle  about  the  bridge  of  the  Tiber.  Arnold  of 
Brescia  was  captured  by  the  emperor  and  handed  over  to  the 
pope.  He  Avas  later  condemned  for  heresy,  hanged  and  his 
body  afterwards  burned.  He  thus  became  "  the  first  in  the 
long  series  of  martyrs  to  liberty  whose  blood  stains  the  rec- 
ords of  the  triumphant  church." 

The  combination  which  was  for  the  time  established  be- 
tween emperor  and  pope  did  not  last  very  long.  The  pope 
was  not  able  to  maintain  himself  long  in  Rome  when 
Frederic's  army  was  withdrawn.  The  emperor  was  com- 
pelled to  hasten  back  north  by  reason  of  pressing  business, 
without  having  reduced  Rome  to  obedience  to  the  pope,  nor 
chastising  King  William  of  Sicily  for  his  pillaging  expedi- 
tions. The  pope  saw  that  if  he  kept  even  a  fragment  of  his 
power  he  must  himself  fight  for  it.  Therefore  he  formed  a 
league  with  the  feudal  barons  of  Apulia  who  were  ready  to 
revolt  against  a  sovereign  whose  growing  power  they  feared. 
He  also  negotiated  with  the  Greek  emperor,  Manuel  I,  for 
the  humbling  of  King  William,  promising  to  grant  him  in 
return  for  his  help  three  Neapolitan  seaports.  The  king  of 
Sicily  was  alarmed  at  this  coalition  of  powers  against  him 
and  hastened  to  make  terms  with  Adrian,  becoming  his  vassal 
and  receiving  from  him  Apulia  and  Sicily  as  fiefs.  Thus 
without  any  aid  from  Frederic  the  pope  had  turned  the  chief 
enemies  of  the  Holy  See  into  friends  and  allies.  While 
Adrian  had  been  thus  strengthening  his  own  hands,  Frederic 
had  not  been  idle.     As  soon  as  he  had  reached  Germany  he 


Frederic  Barbarossa  301 

began  the  work  of  unification  and  consolidation  which  he  had 
left  unfinished  in  order  to  go  to  Italy.  He  made  terms 
with  Henry  of  Austria  by  investing  him  with  the  new  duchy 
of  Austria  which  was  made  independent  of  Bavaria.  Henry, 
the  Lion,  was  by  this  plan  weakened  and  the  way  was  pre- 
pared for  his  entire  subjugation,  which  took  place  in  1180. 
Northern  and  eastern  Germany  was  now  handed  over  to  Al- 
bert the  Bear  and  the  two  Harrys,  while  Frederic  gave  his 
attention  to  the  southwest.  He  deprived  Hermann,  Count 
Palatine,  of  his  territory  for  his  attack  on  Mainz,  and  gave 
it  to  his  half-brother,  Conrad,  thus  forming,  by  the  union 
of  this  territory  with  the  previous  holdings  of  Conrad,  the 
new  Palatinate  with  Heidelberg  as  its  chief  city.  Frederic 
now  married  for  his  second  wife  Beatrice,  the  heiress  of 
the  count  of  Burgundy,  thus  strengthening  his  hold  upon 
the  Middle  Kingdom,  and  materially  extending  his  own  do- 
mains. 

After  completing  all  these  labors  the  emperor  held  a  diet 
at  Besan^on,  in  1157,  which  was  widely  attended.  Here 
trouble  showed  itself  between  the  pope  and  the  emperor. 
Each  claimed  to  be  lord  of  the  world,  and  neither  could  agree 
as  to  the  limits  of  his  power.  The  union,  which  had  been 
brought  about  by  the  common  danger  threatening  them  from 
Arnold  and  the  commune,  was  of  a  very  brief  duration. 
They  soon  fell  back  into  their  old-time  positions  of  watchful 
hostility.  Frederic  was  angered  at  the  pope  for  his  alliance 
with  William  and  the  agreement  which  he  had  made  with  the 
Roman  commune.  The  pope  feared  the  increasing  power  of 
the  emperor  and  was  anxious  to  strengthen  his  own  hands. 
He  further  felt  provoked  because  Frederic  had  imprisoned 
the  Swedish  archbishop  of  Lund,  who  was  an  old  friend  in 
the  missionary  days  in  the  north.  He  sent  Roland  Bandi- 
nelli  of  Siena,  cardinal  of  the  Roman  church,  to  the  diet  of 
Besan^on  to  state  his  grievances  to  the  emperor.  The  salu- 
tation of  this  dignitary  of  the  church  was  misconstrued  into 
an  oflPense.  He  said :  "  The  pope  greets  you  as  a  father 
and  the  cardinals  greet  you  as  brothers."  Frederic  thought 
that  the  cardinals  were  setting  up  a  new  claim  to  rank  equal 
to  Caesar.     A  wrong  use  of  the  phrase  conferre  beneftcia. 


302  The  History  of  Christianity 

or  rather  a  wrong  translation  of  it,  caused  indignation  to 
burst  forth.  It  was  thought  that  Adrian  was  claiming  that 
Frederic  held  the  empire  as  a  fief  from  him.  Frederic  cir- 
culated a  declaration  of  his  rights  throughout  the  empire 
which  ran  as  follows :  "  The  empire  is  held  by  us,  through 
the  election  of  the  princes,  from  God  alone,  who  gave  the 
world  to  be  ruled  by  two  necessary  swords,  and  taught 
through  St.  Peter  that  men  should  fear  God  and  honor  the 
king.  Whosoever  says  that  we  receive  the  imperial  crown 
from  the  lord  Pope  as  a  benefice  goes  against  the  Divine 
command  and  the  teaching  of  Peter,  and  is  guilty  of  false- 
hood." The  outcome  of  this  matter  was  that  Adrian  was 
forced  to  explain  the  use  which  he  had  made  of  the  word 
"  beneficium."  He  said  that  he  had  used  it  in  its  general 
sense  of  benefit,  and  not  in  its  feudal  sense  of  fief.  This  for 
a  time  bridged  over  the  difficulty  and  outwardly  pope  and 
emperor  remained  at  peace. 

In  the  early  summer  of  1158  Frederic  undertook  an  expe- 
dition into  Italy  at  the  head  of  a  great  army.  He  gave,  aa 
a  reason  for  this  movement,  the  arrogance  of  the  Milanese 
who  had  "  raised  their  heads  against  the  Roman  empire." 
The  cities  of  Lombardy  were  at  this  time  divided  into  two 
rival  leagues  which  were  bitterly  opposed  to  one  another. 
Brescia,  Crema,  Parma,  Piacenza,  and  Modena  formed  a 
league  with  Milan  at  the  head.  Pavia  headed  the  second 
confederacy  which  included  Lodi,  Como,  and  Cremona.  The 
latter  league  sided  with  the  emperor.  After  a  fierce  strug- 
gle, in  which  the  forces  of  Milan  were  pretty  much  exhausted, 
that  city  submitted  to  the  emperor  the  ratification  of  the 
appointment  of  their  consuls.  Frederic  was  much  pleased 
over  what  he  considered  an  easy  victory.  He  summoned  a 
second  diet  at  Roncaglia  which  met  from  the  11th  to  the 
25th  of  September.  Here  came  the  most  famous  of  the  doc- 
tors of  the  civil  law  from  the  celebrated  school  of  Bologna. 
They  did  not  hesitate  to  confirm  the  imperial  power  as 
against  all  the  claims  of  the  cities  and  of  the  pope.  They 
invested  the  haughty  Hohenstaufen  with  all  the  absolutism 
of  Justinian.  Their  study  of  the  Roman  civil  law  had 
blinded  them  to  all  the  facts  of  seven  hundred  years  of  his- 


Frederic  Barbarossa  303 

tory.  "  Lord  of  the  world,"  they  styled  Frederic.  "  What- 
ever pleases  the  prince  has  the  force  of  law,  since  the  people 
have  transferred  to  him  all  their  own  sovereignty  and 
power."  It  was  announced  at  this  diet  that  the  emperor 
had  resolved  to  take  back  again  all  his  royal  rights  which 
had  for  so  long  a  time  been  held  in  abeyance.  He  was  will- 
ing, however,  to  reinvest  both  lay  and  ecclesiastical  lords  as 
well  as  the  towns  with  all  the  rights  to  which  they  had  legal 
claim.  A  podesta  was  to  be  established  as  the  supreme  gov- 
ernor of  each  town.  This  representative  of  the  emperor  was 
usually  a  stranger  who  had  no  sympathy  whatever  with  the 
town  he  ruled.  He  was  generally  hated  as  despot  and  in- 
truder. As  soon  as  the  diet  dissolved,  Rainald  of  Dassel  and 
Otto  of  Wittelsbach  Avent  to  the  various  towns  throughout 
Lombardy  appointing  podestas.  This  angered  the  cities 
beyond  control.  Milan  Avas  disgusted  because  the  emperor 
violated  the  terms  of  her  capitulation,  and  broke  into  open 
revolt,  refusing  to  receive  the  podesta  who  had  been  assigned 
to  her.  Other  cities  joined  in  the  revolt.  Frederic  massed 
his  troops  against  Milan  which  held  out  for  three  years  and 
was  then  forced  by  famine  to  open  her  gates.  The  emperor 
made  a  virtue  of  granting  the  JNIilanese  their  lives,  but  for- 
bade them  to  dwell  in  the  open  village  which  remained  after 
the  walls  and  fortifications  had  been  torn  down.  They  were 
scattered  among  the  neighboring  cities  and  the  relics  of  the 
three  Magi  of  the  East,  which  were  a  source  of  so  much 
pride,  were  taken  to  Cologne  and  are  still  one  of  the  chief 
glories  of  that  city.  By  this  terrible  punishment  meted  out 
to  Milan,  it  would  seem  that  the  independence  of  the  Italian 
cities  was  forever  lost  and  that  Frederic  was  king  as  well 
as  emperor. 

The  church  was  alarmed  at  the  success  of  Frederic  and 
Adrian  IV  set  himself  the  task  of  forming  a  league  against 
him  and  threatened  him  in  every  way  possible.  In  1159,  the 
pope's  plans  wei"<?  cut  short  by  death  and  Cardinal  Roland 
was  elected  in  his  stead,  taking  the  title  of  Alexander  III. 
The  new  pope  continued  the  policy  of  Adrian  and  showed 
great  vigor  in  raising  up  enemies  against  Frederic.  He  en- 
couraged the  Lombard  cities  to  rise  once  more  and  unite  for 


304  The  History  of  Christianity 

their  common  defense.  In  1164  Verona,  Piacenza,  Padua, 
and  Treviso  rose  in  revolt  against  their  new  podestas  and 
formed  a  league  for  their  own  safety  and  preservation.  The 
pope  excommunicated  Frederic  and  aided  the  cities  in  re- 
building Milan.  The  emperor  again  set  out  upon  a  journey 
to  Italy,  making  his  fourth  trip  across  the  Alps.  He  has- 
tened directly  to  Rome,  which  city  he  captured  after  a  long 
siege.  But  this  delayed  him  so  long  that  his  army  was 
exposed  to  the  pestilence  that  visits  that  district  every  au- 
tumn. The  flower  of  his  army  was  cut  off  and  he  was  com- 
pelled to  recross  the  Alps  without  doing  anything  to  punish 
the  rebellious  Lombard  cities. 

No  sooner  had  the  emperor  reached  Pavia  on  his  return 
journey,  and  there  halted  to  refresh  his  troops,  than  the 
Lombard  League  took  its  final  shape.  The  organization  was 
completed  in  1168.  Milan,  which  had  again  sprung  into 
prominence,  took  the  lead.  This  time  there  was  no  divi- 
sion. Adversity  had  taught  its  lesson  of  unity  and  all  the 
Lombard  cities,  some  with  bad  grace,  united  for  the  common 
safety.  Only  Pavia  remained  upon  the  side  of  the  emperor 
and  this  because  Frederic  was  present  in  person  to  repress 
any  movement  on  her  part.  The  members  of  this  league 
pledged  themselves  to  aid  each  other  against  all  who  would 
make  war  against  them  or  would  exact  anything  more  from 
them  than  had  been  customary  before  the  time  of  Frederic 
Barbarossa.  When  they  drove  out  the  podestas,  they  reestab- 
lished the  consuls  of  the  republican  regime.  They  now  chose 
from  among  these  a  body  of  rectors  for  the  management  of 
federal  affairs.  They  proceeded  to  take  possession  of  all 
the  passes  of  the  Alps  so  that  Frederic  could  get  back  home 
only  by  the  roundabout  way  of  Susa  and  Mont  Cenis.  Alex- 
ander III  sent  the  league  his  blessing  and  this  brought  with 
it  some  solid  advantages,  as  other  cities  now  joined  the  con- 
federation. In  the  spring  of  1168  they  founded  the  new 
city  of  Alessandria,  named  in  honor  of  the  pope,  in  a  marshy 
district  on  the  banks  of  the  Tanaro.  This  they  fortified  in 
the  strongest  manner.  This  city  grew  so  rapidly  that  within 
a  year  it  had  a  population  sufficient  to  furnish  15,000  fight- 
ing   men.     The    establishment    of    Alessandria    pushed    the 


Frederic  Barbarossa  305 

power  of  the  league  westward  and  protected  the  highway 
which  led  from  Milan  to  Genoa,  and  gave  the  league  access 
to  the  sea.  This  movement  cut  off  all  communication  be- 
tween the  emperor  and  the  southern  portion  of  his  domain. 

Six  years  went  by  without  any  attempt  on  the  part  of 
Frederic  to  overthrow  this  new  enemy.      He  was  kept  busy 
north  of  the  Alps.     But  in  1174  he  made  his  fifth  expedition 
into  Italy  determined  to  punish  these  rebellious  cities.     He 
had  only  a  small  army,  a  mere  fragment  of  the  host  which 
he  had  previously  led.      He  destroyed  Susa  and  laid  siege  to 
Alessandria,  which  his  adherents  named  in  derision  "  Alessan- 
dria of  Straw."     But  the  straw  city  bravely  held  out  till  the 
army  of  the  league  came  to  its  assistance.     Here  a  truce  was 
struck  for  a  time  and  the  armies  did  not  engage  in  battle. 
This  truce,  however,  did  not  last  for  long,  as  in  1176  the 
opposing  forces  met  in  the  plain  which  stretches  from  the 
river  Alona  westward  to  the  Ticino,  about  seventeen  miles 
northwest  of  Milan,  and  hard  by  the  little  village  of  Leg- 
nano.     Here   the   imperial   army   was   disastrously   defeated 
after  a  stubborn  battle,  and  the  emperor  made  his  way  on 
foot  and  in  disguise  to  Pavia.     Frederic  was  now  compelled 
to  give  up  the  struggle.     He  consented  to  the  Truce  of  Ven- 
ice,  in   March,    1177,   which  yielded   all   substantial   points 
for  which   the   cities   contended.     Frederic   made   his   peace 
with  Alexander  and  was  again  taken  into  the  bosom  of  the 
church.     The    permanent    treaty    with    the    Lombards    was 
finally  signed  in  June,  1183,  at  Constance.      By  it  the  em- 
peror granted  to  the  cities  of  the  Lombard  League  all  the 
royal  rights  which  they  had  ever  had,  or  at  that  moment 
enjoyed.      "  The  cities  were  allowed  to  build  fortifications, 
to  continue  their  league,  and  make  such  other  combinations 
as  they  wished.     They  had  complete  jurisdiction  over  their 
own  members,  could  lev3^  troops,  coin  money,  and  exercise 
practically  all  regahan  rights.     The  imperial  podestas  dis- 
appeared,^ and  henceforth   the   podesta  was   but   a   foreign 
judge  called  in  by  the  citizens,  in  the  hope  that  his  strange- 
ness to  local  factions  would  make  him  an  impartial  magis- 
trate.    The   only    clauses   which   upheld   the   supremacy   of 
the  emperor  stipulated  that   the  consul   should  receive  im- 


306  The  History  of  Christianity 

perial  confirmation,  that  a  right  of  appeal  should  lie  to  the 
imperial  court,  and  that  the  emperor  should  still  have  a  claim 
to  receive  the  fodrum  regale  as  a  contribution  to  his  military 
expenses." 

In  the  frank  and  honest  effort  which  Frederic  put  forth 
to  live  up  to  the  conditions  of  this  peace  without  any  attempt 
to  evade  or  annul  them,  is  seen  the  real  greatness  of  the  man, 
a  man  even  greater  in  adversity  than  in  success.  A  com- 
parison with  King  John  of  England,  some  years  later,  under 
similar  circumstances,  will  but  emphasize  the  fact  that  when 
Frederic  was  drowned  while  crossing  a  small  stream  in  Pisi- 
dia  upon  the  third  crusade,  the  Christian  world  lost  one  of 
its  noblest  standard  bearers.  The  Peace  of  Constance  in 
1183  was  another  compromise  in  which  neither  party  gained 
all  it  contended  for,  but  it  is  notable  as  anticipating  Magna 
Charta  in  virtually  asserting  the  principle  that  rulers  as 
well  as  subjects  are  bound  by  law.  It  marks  a  step  in  the 
advance  of  political  righteousness  and  equity  in  the  time- 
long  struggle  with  tyranny  and  wrong.  When  the  con- 
flict was  resumed  the  successors  of  Hildebrand  had  gained 
such  decided  advantage  that  they  subjected  the  feudal 
princes  of  Europe  to  the  rule  of  the  church  until  a  form  of 
government  was  developed  which  was  superior  to  both  em- 
pire and  papacy. 


CHAPTER  XXXV 

THE    TRIUMPH    OF    THE    PAPACY 

A  CENTURY  and  more  had  gone  by  between  Hildebrand 
and  Innocent  III,  No  proclamation  of  claims  so  sig- 
nal and  important  as  that  of  Canossa  had  since  that  time 
been  promulgated,  but  these  claims  had  never  been  modified 
in  the  least.  Adrian  IV  and  Alexander  III  set  forth  the 
same,  and  labored  most  valiantly  to  make  them  good,  al- 
though the  development  of  nationality  had,  in  the  meantime, 
made  their  task  infinitely  more  difficult.  Before  the  time  of 
Innocent  III  the  popes  had  actually  established  many  prece- 
dents which  involved  the  supremacy  of  the  Roman  pontiff 
over  all  temporal  rulers.  Popes  had  excommunicated  sov- 
ereigns and  released  their  subjects  from  all  allegiance. 
They  had  called  sovereigns  to  account  for  flagrant  outrages 
upon  the  church  and  for  immoral  living.  They  had  received 
kingdoms  as  feudal  fiefs  from  their  sovereigns.  They  had 
granted  kingdoms  that  had  no  legitimate  lord,  or  whose  lord 
had  been  infidel,  to  persons  of  their  nomination.  They  had 
frequently  interfered  in  the  election  of  an  emperor  and  had 
acted  as  judge  or  arbiter  in  the  case  of  last  resort  and  that, 
too,  by  their  own  nomination.  They  had  assumed  this  power 
for  so  long  that  Christendom  had  ceased  to  consider  it  ex- 
travagant and  had  very  largely  taken  them  at  their  own 
valuation.  The  triumph  of  the  spiritual  power  was,  out- 
side of  the  nobility,  earnestly  desired  by  the  whole  people 
of  Europe.  The  Latin  clergy  had  been  asserting  the  su- 
premacy of  the  church  over  all  other  powers  for  more  than 
a  hundred  years,  and  this  leadership  had  been  preached  with 
such  enthusiasm  and  conviction  that  the  idea  had  become 
common.  Man's  natural  sentiment  of  order  harmonized 
with  this  idea  of  government,  and  its  impracticability  had 

not  yet  been  proved.     The  crusades  had  helped  the  popes  in 

307 


S08  The  History  of  Christianity 

building  up  their  power  by  weakening  that  of  their  rivals. 
The  cross  was  the  papal  emblem  and  the  popes  assumed  the 
power  of  summoning  all  Christians  to  service  under  this 
banner.  The  raising  of  the  cross  was  looked  upon  as  a 
compulsory  levy  by  all  Europe  and  to  follow  it  was  the  duty 
of  every  one  who  was  capable  of  bearing  arms.  For  a 
person,  no  matter  how  powerful,  to  refuse  to  assume  the 
cross  was  looked  upon  as  an  impious  act,  and  one  to  bar  him 
from  the  blessings  of  heaven.  In  fact,  the  more  powerful 
the  ruler,  the  more  did  it  appear  to  be  his  duty  to  go  on  a 
crusade  if  summoned.  It  was  this  spirit  that  took  such  men 
as  Robert  of  Normandy,  Richard  of  England,  Philip  of 
France,  and  Godfrey  of  Bouillon,  on  the  "  pilgrimages  of 
grace  "  to  the  holy  land.  Although  Conrad  III  of  Hohen- 
staufen  knew  full  well  that  he  was  needed  at  home  in  the 
arduous  task  of  building  up  the  imperial  power  and  enforc- 
ing law  and  order  among  his  own  people,  yet  he  yielded 
to  the  importunities  of  St.  Bernard,  and  led  the  strength 
and  chivalry  of  the  empire  upon  a  hapless  expedition  into 
Asia  Minor  where  their  bones  were  left  to  whiten  on  the 
plains  and  in  the  mountain  passes.  His  great  successor, 
Frederic  Barbarossa,  lost  his  life  in  another  vain  attempt 
to  rescue  the  sepulcher  of  the  Saviour.  In  this  way  the  ad- 
versaries of  the  pope  were  weakened  by  loss  of  men  and 
treasure,  and  suffered  in  reputation  by  their  unsuccessful 
expeditions,  while  the  popes  grew  in  favor  and  power  by 
reason  of  the  calamities  that  fell  upon  others.  It  is  worthy 
of  note  that  while  emperors  and  kings  lost  their  lives  and 
fortunes  in  their  vain  attempts  to  build  up  the  papal  power, 
no  pope  ever  went  upon  a  crusade  and  when  those  strange 
and  fantastic  movements  had  spent  themselves  the  papacy 
was  found  to  have  increased  its  wealth  many  fold  by  reason 
of  the  losses  that  had  fallen  upon  others. 

But  after  all  this  has  been  said,  papal  authority  grew  to 
its  commanding  height  not  by  reason  of  fortuitous  circum- 
stances, but  by  its  assertion  of  eternal  principles  of  justice, 
righteousness,  and  humanity.  This  was  its  claim  to  the 
veneration  and  reverence  of  humanity.  It  brought  about 
strife   and  bloodshed.     It   trampled  upon  justice.     But  it 


Conditions  at  Accession  of  Innocent  III  309 

still  proclaimed  a  higher  ultimate  end.  So  far  as  language 
was  concerned  the  papacy  was  still  profoundly  religious. 
The  pope  was  in  his  words  "  the  servant  of  the  servants  of 
God."  He  really  imagined  himself  the  vicar  and  representa- 
tive of  Christ. 

Says  the  historian  Milman,  "  At  no  period  of  the  history 
of  the  papacy  could  the  boldest  assertion  of  the  spiritual 
power,  or  even  the  most  daring  usurpation,  so  easily  have 
disguised  itself  to  the  loftiest  mind  under  the  sense  of  duty 
to  God  and  to  mankind;  never  was  season  so  favorable  for 
the  aggrandizement  of  the  pope,  never  could  his  aggrandize- 
ment appear  a  greater  blessing  to  the  world.  Wherever  In- 
nocent cast  his  eyes  over  Christendom  and  beyond  the  limits 
of  Christendom  appeared  disorder,  contested  thrones,  sov- 
ereigns oppressing  their  subjects,  subjects  in  arms  against 
their  sovereigns,  the  ruin  of  the  Christian  cause.  In  Italy, 
the  crown  of  Naples  on  the  brow  of  an  infant;  the  fairest 
provinces  under  the  galling  yoke  of  fierce  German  adven- 
turers; the  Lombard  repubHcs,  Guelf  or  Ghibelline,  at  war 
within  their  walls,  at  war  or  in  implacable  animosity  against 
each  other;  the  empire  distracted  by  rival  claimants  for  the 
throne,  one  vast  scene  of  battle,  intrigue  almost  anarchy; 
the  tyrannical  and  dissolute  Philip  Augustus,  king  of 
France,  before  long  the  tyrannical  and  feeble  John,  king  of 
England.  The  Byzantine  Empire  is  tottering  to  its  fall; 
the  kingdom  of  Jerusalem  confined  almost  to  the  city  of  Acre. 
Every  realm  seemed  to  demand,  or  at  least  to  invite,  the  in- 
terposition, the  mediation,  of  the  head  of  Christendom;  in 
every  land  one  party  at  least,  or  one  portion  of  society, 
would  welcome  his  interference  in  the  last  resort  for  refuge 
or  for  protection." 

In  order  that  we  may  understand,  to  any  great  degree,  the 
well-marked  epoch  in  the  history  of  civilization  of  the  world 
which  is  known  as  the  Reign  of  Innocent  III  it  will  be  neces- 
sary to  know  something  of  the  private  character  and  history 
of  the  man  who  did  so  much  to  mold  it.  —  Next  to  Gregory 
VII,  Innocent  III  was  undoubtedly  the  greatest  pope  that 
ever  occupied  the  chair  of  St.  Peter.  If  the  great  idea  of 
a  Christian  republic  with  a  pope  at  its  head  was  ever  to  be 


310  The  History  of  Christianity 

realized,  none  could  bring  more  lofty,  more  varied  qualifi- 
cations for  its  accomplishment,  none  could  fall  on  more 
favorable  times  than  Innocent  III.  His  father  was  a  mem- 
ber of  the  famous  house  of  Conti  from  which  already  sev- 
eral popes  had  sprung.  He  had  given  to  him  the  very  best 
training  of  the  age  and  he  cultivated  to  the  utmost  his  emi- 
nent gifts  and  talents  by  the  study  of  theology  under  Peter 
of  Corbeil  at  Paris,  and  canon  law  at  Bologna  and  Rome. 
Family  influence,  combined  with  his  undoubted  ability, 
pushed  him  rapidly  to  the  front.  He  was  created  cardinal- 
deacon  by  his  uncle,  Clement  III,  in  1190,  and  intrusted 
with  the  management  of  much  of  the  business  of  the  papacy. 
He  was  by  birth,  education  and  knowledge  of  affairs  excel- 
lently fitted  for  his  post  of  high  honor.  At  the  time  of  his 
election  he  was  only  thirty-seven  years  of  age,  thus  bring- 
ing to  his  duties  the  vigor  and  fire  of  youth.  Upon  the  death 
of  Celestine  III,  in  1198,  Lothario  was  chosen  unanimously 
to  succeed  him  by  the  college  of  cardinals,  and  their  selection 
was  ratified  by  the  city  of  Rome.  He  took  the  title  of  In- 
nocent HI  and  proceeded  without  loss  of  time  to  take  up 
the  duties  of  his  high  office.  — ' 

To  find  out  the  views  of  this  man  who  has  been  elevated 
to  the  highest  honor  in  the  world,  it  will  only  be  necessary 
to  quote  from  his  own  writings.  In  a  letter  to  Otto,  written 
only  one  month  after  his  coronation,  he  states :  ~~"  The 
papacy  has  a  preeminence  over  royalty.  The  authority  of 
the  latter  is  exercised  on  earth ^and  over  the  bodies  of  men; 
that  of  the  former,  in  Heaven  and  affects  the  souls.  Kings 
rule  over  particular  countries,  provinces  and  lands ;  but 
Peter  is  superior  to  them  all  in  power,  and  enjoys  the  full- 
ness of  authority,  inasmuch  as  he  is  the  Vicar  of  Him  who 
has  the  supreme  dominion  of  the  world."—  -Again  his  inau- 
gural sermon  expressed  his  ideal  of  the  pontifical  character : 
"  Ye  see  what  manner  of  servant  that  is  whom  the  Lord  hath 
set  over  his  people ;  no  other  than  the  vicegerent  of  Christ ; 
the  successor  of  Peter.  He  stands  in  the  midst  between  God 
and  man ;  below  God,  above  man ;  less  than  God,  more  than 
man.  He  judges  all,  is  judged  by  none,  for  it  is  written  — 
*  I  will  judge.'     But  he  whom  the  preeminence  of  dignity 


Reign  of  Innocent  311 

exalts,  is  lowered  by  his  office  of  a  servant,  that  so  humility 
may  be  exalted,  and  pride  abased;  for  God  is  against  the 
high-minded  and  to  the  lowly  he  shows  mercy;  and  he  who 
exalteth  himself  shall  be  abased."*'  With  such  a  lofty  con- 
cept of  his  office  as  is  revealed  by  these  words,  we  can  but 
expect  action,  and  we  will  find  that  he  was  in  no  way  content 
with  idle  words ;  unequivocal  acts  followed ;  they  were  no  less 
energetic  than  those  of  Gregory  VII.  ~^is  first  thoughts  s 
were  directed  to  the  reformation  of  the  papal  court ;  the  res- 
toration of  the  pope's  temporal  power;  the  deliverance  of 
Italy  from  the  rule  of  the  stranger;  the  separation  of  the 
two  Sicilies  from  Germany;  and  to  make  the  authority  of 
the  head  of  the  church  felt  throughout  the  length  and 
breadth  of  Christendom.  The  power  of  Innocent  was 
quickly  recognized  throughout  Europe.  He  laid  France 
under  interdict  and  forced  Philip  Augustus  to  take  back  his 
repudiated  wife,  Ingeberga  of  Denmark.  He  compelled 
Alfonso  IX  of  Leon  to  break  off  a  marriage  he  had  con- 
tracted with  his  niece,  and  gave  the  crown  of  Aragon  to  Peter 
II  only  after  he  had  promised  annual  tribute.  He  made 
Sancho  I  of  Portugal,  who  had  promised  to  pay  a  certain 
amount  of  tribute  and  had  not  done  so,  place  his  kingdom 
under  the  protection  of  the  Holy  See.  He  settled  difficulties 
in  Poland,  Hungary,  and  Norway,  and  mixed  in  the  politics  i 
of  England,  receiving  that  country  as  a  fief  from  King  John. 
He  again  took  possession  of  the  long-disputed  heritage  of 
Matilde,  organizing  it  as  a  fief  of  the  church  and  driving 
out  the  German  officers  who  had  been  placed  there  by  Henry 
VII.  He  aided  the  widowed  Constance  by  making  good  the 
claim  of  her  infant  son,  Frederic,  to  the  crown  of  Sicily 
and,  after  the  death  of  the  princess,  in  1198,  acted  as  guard- 
ian for  her  son  and  strove  long  and  faithfully  in  upholding 
his  rights  against  German,  Saracen,  and  Greek  freebooters, — 
However,  all  the  political  activity  on  the  part  of  Innocent 
is  cited  merely  to  show  how  vast  and  far-reaching  was  his 
influence  and  power.  It  is  not  with  these  nations  we  are  to 
deal,  as  the  third  and  last  act  in  the  great  mediaeval  drama 
does  not  have  the  kings  of  England,  France,  Poland,  and 
Spain  as  actors.     The  popes,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  sue- 


312  The  History  of  Christianity 

cessors  of  Hildebrand's  imperial  antagonists,  on  the  other, 
are  the  sole  occupiers  of  the  stage. 

Before  the  death  of  Henry  VI  he  took  precautions  for  the 
succession  of  his  infant  son,  Frederic,  but  it  soon  became 
apparent  that  the  German  princes  would  not  accept  him  as 
a  ruler.  Philip  of  Swabia,  a  younger  brother  of  Henry  VI, 
after  striving  faithfully  to  seat  his  little  nephew  on  the 
throne,  was  himself  elected  king  of  the  Germans  by  a  diet 
held  at  Miilhausen  on  the  8th  of  March,  1198.  Otto,  the 
second  son  of  Henry  the  Lion,  who  had  been  the  uncompro- 
mising enemy  of  the  Hohenstaufen,  was  chosen  king  by  a 
dissatisfied  faction  at  a  diet  held  at  Cologne  in  June  of  the 
same  year.  The  cause  of  Otto  was  championed  by  Richard 
of  England  whilst  the  king  of  France  favored  Philip  of 
Swabia.  A  ten-years'  civil  war  followed  between  Philip 
and  Otto.  The  German  princes  quite  generally  favored  the 
Hohenstaufen,  while  Innocent  HI  championed  the  cause  of 
Otto.  In  this  struggle  the  pope  assumed  the  right  of  act- 
ing as  judge,  and  decided  in  favor  of  Otto  on  the  ground, 
he  said,  of  general  fitness,  that  prince  belonging  to  a  devout 
stock  and  himself  a  champion  of  the  church.  Philip  was 
finally  assassinated  and  for  a  time  Otto  reigned  supreme. 
But  he  became  involved  in  a  quarrel  with  Innocent  and  the 
pope  withheld  his  favor  and  had  the  young  Frederic 
crowned  as  a  rival  king.  The  empire  was  thus  distracted 
and  weakened  so  that  it  could  not  check  the  rapid  develop- 
ment of  the  papal  power. 

But  Innocent  did  not  confine  himself  wholly  to  the  up- 
holding of  the  temporal  power  of  the  papacy,  although 
in  this  he  adopted  energetic  measures.  He  led  a  crusade 
against  heresy  which  was  not  a  mere  war  against  the  ene- 
mies of  the  wealth  and  power  of  the  church,  as  some  have 
held.  He  saw  and  understood  the  tendencies  wliich  were  to 
transform  the  spiritual  life  of  the  thirteenth  century.  He 
favored  Dominic  and  Francis  and  was  largely  instrumental 
in  their  success.  But  it  is  as  the  conqueror  and  organizer, 
rather  than  as  the  priest  or  prophet,  that  Innocent  made 
his  mark  in  the  church.  Toward  the  end  of  life,  Innocent 
held  a  general  council  of  the  church,  known  as  the  Fourth 


Fourth  Later  an  Council  313 

Lateran  Council.  This  was  probably  the  greatest  gather- 
ing of  churchmen  in  the  history  of  the  Avorld.  — ^lore  than 
four  hundred  bishops  were  in  attendance  together  with  a 
vast  throng  of  abbots  and  priests.  Although  Innocent  was 
broken  in  health  and  knew  his  end  was  near  he  presided  in 
person  and  had  a  deep  interest  in  all  the  proceedings.  On 
summoning  the  council  Innocent  stated  that  he  "  had  two 
things  specifically  at  heart,  the  deliverance  of  the  Holy 
Land,  and  the  reform  of  the  Church  Universal."- 

The  council  strove  hard  and  with  a  unity  of  purpose  to 
carry  into  effect  the  program  of  the  pope.  —Its  first  step 
was  to  proscribe  all  heresies.  It  decreed  that  all  rulers 
should  promise  not  to  tolerate  any  heretics  within  their 
dominions,  and  that  any  prince  refusing  to  comply  with  an 
injunction  of  the  church  to  purge  his  dominions  of  heresy 
was  to  be  punished  with  excommunication,  and  in  case  of 
contumacy  to  be  deposed  if  necessary  by  force  of  arms. 
"  It  strove  to  quicken  enthusiasm  for  the  fifth  crusade  which 
the  pope  had  urgently  striven  for,  and  passed  a  drastic 
scheme  for  the  reformation  of  the  internal  life  of  the 
church."  "  It  strove  to  elevate  the  morals  and  the  learn- 
ing of  the  clergy,  to  check  their  worldliness  and  covetous- 
ness,  and  to  restrain  them  from  abusing  the  authority  of  the 
church  through  excessive  zeal,  or  more  corrupt  motives." 
The  purpose  of  the  seventy  canons  passed  by  this  council 
was  to  regulate  and  ameliorate  the  influence  of  the  church 
on  society.  —  To  attempt  such  a  gigantic  task  speaks  well 
for  the  character  and  the  intelligence  of  both  pope  and 
council,  even  though  that  which  they  undertook  was  in  many 
cases  impossible  of  accomplishment.  This  lofty  program 
of  reform,  enunciated  by  Innocent  and  enacted  by  a  willing 
council,  brought  his  pontificate  to  a  glorious  end.  Inno- 
cent III  was  by  far  the  most  powerful  of  all  the  popes  and, 
unlike  his  great  and  unhappy  predecessor  Hildebrand,  was 
so  fortunate  as  to  die  at  the  height  of  his  power,  beloved 
by  the  church  at  large.  He  died  at  Perugia,  in  the  summer 
of  1216,  in  the  fifty-sixth  year  of  his  age  and  the  nineteenth 
of  his  pontificate.  He  advanced  grand  views,  adopted  en- 
ergetic measures,  laid  firm  foundations   for  the  theocracy 


314  The  History  of  Christianity 

and  raised  again  the  papal  pretentions  to  the  height  they 
reached  with  Gregory  VII.  He  never  appreciated  the  pre- 
carious nature  of  the  tenure  of  papal  power  and  had  no 
vision  of  the  rising  tide  of  democracy. 

It  may  be  truthfully  stated  that  at  the  death  of  Frederic 
Barbarossa  the  power  of  the  papacy  was  decidedly  in  the 
ascendant.  It  had  come  out  of  a  conflict  with  the  empire, 
victorious  in  all  that  made  a  victory  valuable.  It  had 
championed  the  cause  of  liberty,  and  liberty  was  trium- 
phant. But  the  empire  was  not  yet  vanquished.  Circum- 
stances conspired  to  give  to  the  empire  strength  where  it 
had  heretofore  been  weak.  Its  grasp  had  been  feeble  in 
Italy  because  the  emperor  had  possessed  next  to  no  land  in 
the  peninsula  and  the  sentiment  of  loyalty  had  been  very 
much  weakened  by  this  fact.  The  inheritance  of  the  king- 
dom of  Naples  and  Sicily  passed  into  the  hands  of  a  woman 
as  sole  heiress,  by  the  death  of  William  II.  This  woman, 
Constance,  had  married  Henry,  the  eldest  son  of  Frederic 
Barbarossa,  in  1186.  Upon  the  death  of  Frederic,  Henry 
succeeded  to  the  crown  of  Germany.  He  also  controlled 
through  his  wife  the  Sicilian  kingdom.  Thus  it  was  that 
the  Hohenstaufen  had  one  imperial  territory  to  the  south 
and  another  to  the  north  of  the  papal  states,  which  lay 
like  a  narrow  wedge  between.  It  looked  to  Henry  VI  as  if 
he  could  at  last  compel  the  pope  to  recognize  the  imperial 
theory  of  universal  government  and  give  up  his  vain  pre- 
tensions. But  Henry  died  after  a  brief  reign  of  only  seven 
years,  leaving  an  infant  son  to  make  good  his  quasi-claim 
upon  the  imperial  crown.  As  this  infant  became  the  last 
determined  champion  of  secularism  before  the  empire  finally 
succumbed  to  the  popes,  he  deserves  particular  notice. 

Frederic  II  was  just  twenty  years  old  when  the  death  of 
Innocent  III  allowed  him  to  govern  as  well  as  to  reign. 
The  English  historian,  Matthew  Paris,  speaks  of  Frederic 
as  "  the  Avonder  of  the  world."  Mr.  Freeman  says  that 
"  there  probably  never  lived  a  human  being  endowed  with 
greater  natural  gifts,  or  whose  natural  gifts  were,  accord- 
ing to  the  means  offered  him  by  his  age,  more  sedulously 
cultivated.     Warrior,    statesman,    lawgiver,    scholar,    there 


Frederic  II  315 

was  nothing  in  the  compass  of  the  pohtical  or  intellectual 
world  of  his  age  which  he  failed  to  grasp."     By  birth  he 
was  half  Norman  and  half  German;  by  birth-place,  Italian 
rather  than  German.      Sensual  and  luxurious,  he  was   also 
vigorous  and  brave  in  war  and  astute  in  politics.     Prefer- 
ring strict  orthodoxy  in  religion  and  enforcing  it  in  legis- 
lation, lifelong  contact  with  the  Saracen  and  natural  affini- 
ties with  Islamite  art  and  science  made  him  tolerant  of  Is- 
lamism.     By  nature  a  free  thinker,  his  reverence  for  Chris- 
tian truth  and  life  as  exhibited  in  the  Roman  Church  was 
not  enhanced  by  the  examples  of  contemporary  prelates,  nor 
by  the  cruel  injustice  which  he  experienced  at  the  hands  of 
the  vicegerent  of  Christ.      He  had  all  the  energy  and  knightly 
valor  of  his  father,  Henry,  and  his  grandfather,  Barbarossa, 
but  he  loved  not  war.     He  had  inherited  from  his  mother 
and  had  fostered  by  education  among  the  orange  groves  of 
Palermo,  a  love  of  luxury  and  beauty,  an  intellect  refined, 
subtile    and   philosophic.     It   is    only   through   the   mist   of 
calumny  and  fable  that  we  discern  the  outline  of  the  true 
man.     He  had  all  the  learning,  knowledge,  and  accomplish- 
ments of  the  day.     He  was  master  of  the  Mussulman  arts 
and  sciences,  skilled  in  Christian  scholasticism  and  philoso- 
phy; he  knew  Latin,   Greek,   French,   German,  Italian,   Si- 
cilian, Arabic  and  Hebrew.     All  these  were  to  him  as  natural 
tongues.     He  had  a  great  interest  in  architecture;  he  fos- 
tered Italian  sculpture  and  painting  and  was  himself  no  mean 
artist;  he  cultivated  Italian  poetry  and  was  himself  a  poet 
of  high  grade ;  he  delighted  in  geometry  and  astronomy ;  he 
regulated  his  public  and  private  life  by  the  predictions  of 
the  astrologers,  claiming  at  his  death  that  not  only  the  time 
of  that  event  but  the  place  had  been  foretold;  he  was  curi- 
ous in  natural  history  and  formed  an  extensive  and  valuable 
collection    of   strange   and   curious    animals,   studying   their 
structure  and  habits  with  the  greatest  care.     The  wonder  of 
the  Italians  was  excited  by  the  camels  and  dromedaries  that 
were  employed  in  carrying  his  baggage,  while  an  elephant, 
presented  to  him  by  the  Sultan  of  Egypt,  was  as  famous  as 
that  one  o^vned  by  Charlemagne.     He  studied  veterinary  sci- 
ence in  order  that  he  might  care  for  his  animals,  while  con- 


316  The  History  of  Christianity 

cern  for  his  own  health  made  him  acquainted  with  surgery 
and  medicine.  He  enjoyed  hunting  and  hawking,  and  wrote 
a  treatise  on  falconry  that  attests  his  knowledge  both  of 
zoology  and  anatomy.  He  was  by  nature  a  freethinker  and 
his  reverence  for  Christian  truth  was  not  enhanced  by  his 
acquaintance  with  its  chief  exponents.  He  punished  heresy 
throughout  his  own  dominions,  yet  life-long  contact  with  the 
Saracen  and  natural  affinities  with  Islamite  art  and  science 
made  him  tolerant  of  Islamism.  Artful,  cynical,  skeptical, 
he  was  a  trained  diplomat  and  used  all  the  arts  of  the  states- 
man with  unscrupulous  finesse. 

The  political  theory  of  Frederic  II  differed  from  that  of 
his  grandfather,  Barbarossa.  He  held,  rather,  the  theory 
of  coordination.  Recognizing  the  spiritual  sovereignty  of 
the  pope,  he  denied  him  the  temporal  supremacy  which  he 
claimed  for  himself.  Innocent  III  died  before  any  clash 
could  come,  but  his  successors  championed  his  views,  and 
Frederic  soon  fell  into  disfavor  with  them.  Placed  as  the 
empire  was,  it  was  scarcely  possible  for  its  head  not  to  be 
involved  in  war  with  the  papacy.  The  latter  was  continuall}"^ 
pushing  forward  its  claim  to  sovereignty  in  Itah\  Frederic 
had  unthinkingly  given  to  the  popes  that  followed  Innocent 
in  quick  succession  a  hold  upon  him  which  they  were  not 
slow  to  take  advantage  of.  At  his  coronation  he  gave  a 
boyish  promise  to  Innocent  to  go  on  a  crusade.  His  failure 
to  fulfill  this  vow  immediately  was  looked  upon  as  impious 
neglect,  although  his  enemies  must  have  recognized  the  neces- 
sity of  his  quelling  disturbance  at  home  and  organizing  his 
Sicilian  kingdom.  So  long  as  the  easy-going  Honorius  III 
occupied  the  papal  throne,  trouble  was  easily  avoided;  but 
when  Gregory  IX  was  chosen  as  his  successor,  a  change  was 
immediately  inaugurated.  That  stem  and  indomitable  old 
man  proceeded  immediately  to  reduce  Frederic  to  submission. 
He  was  at  once  excommunicated  for  not  going  on  a  crusade 
as  he  had  promised.  He  started  and  his  force  was  smitten 
with  an  epidemic  before  embarking.  Frederic  returned  and 
was  again  excommunicated  for  his  disobedience.  He  finally, 
when  he  thought  the  time  propitious,  went  upon  the  crusade 
without  waiting  for  the  removal  of  the  pope's  anathema. 


Frederic  II  S17 

For  this  he  was  again  excommunicated.     He  succeeded  in 
making  a  favorable  peace  with  the  Sultan  by  which  Jerusa- 
lem, Nazareth,  and  Bethlehem  were  rescued  from  the  hands 
of  the  infidel.     Although  a  heretic,  he  accomplished  more  for 
the  Christian  cause  than  a  generation  of  orthodox  pilgrims 
had  been  able  to  do.     After  completing  this  advantageous 
peace,  he   sailed   for  Italy   and  was   again  excommunicated 
for  returning.      He  found  that  Gregory  had  devastated  Apu- 
lia with  fire  and  sword  while  he  was  absent.     He  drove  the 
papal  troops  over  the  frontier  and  threatened  the  patrimony 
of  St.  Peter.     Gregory  IX  was  finally  glad  to  make  peace 
at  the  instigation  of  Salza  and  Leopold,  Duke  of  Austria. 
On  July  23,  1230,  the  Peace  of  San  Germano  was  signed  be- 
tween Gregory  IX  and  Frederic  II.     The  emperor  promised 
to  protect  the  dominions  of  the  pope.     The  pope,  in  turn, 
removed  his  excommunication  and  again  admitted  Frederic 
to   the  bosom  of   the   church.      This   peace  lasted  for  nine 
years,  but  was  interrupted  by  the  rebellion  of  Frederic's  son, 
Henry.     Meantime  Frederic  subdued  the  Lombard  cities  and 
completed  his  organization  of  Italy,  establishing  a  govern- 
ment for  his  Sicilian  kingdom  far  in  advance  of  the  times. 

The  Peace  of  San  Germano  lasted  for  nine  years  and  was 
made  use  of  by  Frederic  in  subduing  the  Lombard  cities  and 
completing  his  organization  of  Italy.  Gregory  was  also 
very  busy  during  these  nine  years  in  suppressing  disturb- 
ances, organizing  the  inquisition,  and  encouraging  the  new 
order  of  mendicant  friars.  His  greatest  work  and  one  for 
which  he  is  most  justly  famous  was  the  codification  of  the 
ecclesiastical  laws.  For  this  work  he  was  specially  well  fitted 
as  he  was  a  remarkably  skilful  and  learned  lawyer.  The 
codification  of  these  laws  was  completed  in  1234  and  printed 
under  the  title  of  Nova  Compilatio  Decretalium,  in  1473,  at 
Mainz. 

Upon  the  accession  of  Innocent  IV  the  war  that  for  a  time 
had  slumbered  burst  forth  again  between  emperor  and  pope. 
It  seems  only  to  have  gathered  strength  in  the  interim.  The 
old  war  cries  of  Henry  and  Hildebrand,  of  Barbarossa  and 
Alexander,  roused  again  all  the  hatred  of  Italian  factions. 
The  pope  set  up  rival  claimants  to  the  empire  and  declared 


318  The  History  of  Christianity 

that  the  power  of  Peter,  symbolized  by  the  two  keys,  was 
temporal  as  well  as  spiritual.  The  emperor  appealed  to 
Roman  law  to  substantiate  his  own  claim  and  denounced 
those  set  forth  by  the  pope  as  folly.  He  laughed  at  ana- 
thema, upbraided  the  avarice  of  the  church,  drove  the  friars 
out  of  his  kingdom,  and  made  prisoners  of  the  commissioners 
sent  from  Germany  to  a  council  at  Rome.  Innocent  IV  was 
compelled  to  take  refuge  in  France,  but  he  still  struggled  on. 
By  intrigue  and  conspiracy  he  succeeded  in  forming  an  anti- 
imperialistic  league  in  Germany,  and  stirring  up  the  Sicilian 
and  Apulian  barons  against  the  emperor.  This  drama 
dragged  its  weary  way  through  four  years.  Meantime  medi- 
aeval idealism,  represented  by  the  two  grand  conceptions  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  the  Holy  Roman  Church  and  the  Holy 
Roman  Empire,  was  suffering  mortal  enfeeblement.  Long 
before  the  end  of  the  struggle  the  church  had  ceased  to  be 
holy,  Roman  or  sacerdotal,  while  the  empire  never  was,  save 
in  name,  holy,  Roman  or  imperial. 

Frederic  died  in  1250,  worn  out  by  his  long  struggle  and 
pursued  to  his  death,  and  after,  by  papal  maledictions  and 
slanders,  which  represented  him  as  dying  unreconciled  to  the 
church,  and  his  son  Manfred  as  having  hastened  his  death 
by  smothering  him  with  a  pillow.  This  is  perhaps  the  basest 
of  all  the  slanders  which  were  heaped  upon  his  name.  His 
sons,  Manfred  and  Conrad  IV,  continued  the  struggle  for  a 
time,  but  were  completely  overthrown  by  the  French  forces 
that  now  came  to  the  aid  of  the  papacy.  Conrad  was  cap- 
tured and  hung  by  Charles  of  Anjou,  and  thus  the  glorious 
Hohenstaufen,  unrivaled  in  splendor  among  the  houses  of 
Germany,  came  to  a  sad,  unmerited,  and  ignoble  end. 

The  fiction  of  an  equal  partnership  between  the  spiritual 
and  the  universal  temporal  sovereign,  for  the  control  of  all 
men  by  a  harmonious  system,  passed  into  the  reality  of  a 
theocracy  administered  by  the  pope.  From  1250  Europe, 
accordingly,  acquiesced  for  half  a  century  and  the  greater 
part  of  Europe  for  two  centuries  in  the  view  which  had  been 
formulated  in  the  canon  law  during  the  pontificate  of  Greg- 
ory IX.  The  character  assigned  to  the  Bishop  of  Rome  by 
the  framers  of  this  canon  law  is  as  august  and  venerable 


Europe  a  Theocracy  Under  Popes  319 

as  any  which  it  has  ever  entered  into  man's  imagination  to 
conceive.     Europe  was  considered  in  this  system  as  one  vast 
moral  territory,  of  which  the  pope  was  the  supreme  magis- 
trate, on  whom  the  eyes  of  all  were  fixed,  and  to  whom  every 
one  could  appeal  as  the  tutelary  and  incorruptible  guardian 
of  truth  and  justice.     "  Beyond  the  reach  of  clashing  pas- 
sions and  numberless  temptations  by  which  the  children  of 
men  are  beset,  the  sole  object  of  authority  was  to  secure  for 
every  Christian,  that  future  happiness  which  is  the  certain 
reward  of  virtue.     For  this  grand  end  he  promulgated  laws, 
dictated  by  the  spirit  of  unerring  wisdom,  which  prevented 
crime  while  they  purified  intention,  and  which  no  one,  with- 
out violating  his  duty  to  the  great  European  family,  could 
venture  to  disobey.     Greater  than  monarch  by  his  functions, 
humbler  than  the  humblest  by  his   inclinations,  his  officers 
were  peace,  and  his  exactors  righteousness.     Unlike  the  re- 
luctant services  wrung  from  their  miserable  serfs  by  the  op- 
pressors among  whom  Europe  had  been  portioned  out,  the 
homage  which  the  pope  received  from  submissive  millions  was 
the  willing  unforced  obedience  of  grateful  children ;  and  the 
power  which  he  exercised  was  to  guide  the  ignorant  in  the 
way,  and  to  protect  him  that  had  no  helper  against  the 
mighty  and  terrible." 

Thus  while  the  face  of  Europe  was  disfigured  by  a  thou- 
sand ridiculous  and  discordant  customs,  the  offspring  of 
violence  and  barbarity,  there  was,  among  them  all,  "a  law 
transcendant  and  subhme,  guarded  by  sanctions  which  all 
revered,  enforced  by  authority  which  all  acknowledged,  by 
which  the  conqueror  and  the  conquered,  the  warrior  and  the 
peasant,  the  layman  and  the  priest,  nay  by  which  the  judge 
and  the  criminal  who  trembled  before  the  seat  of  justice, 
were  knit  together  by  one  common  brotherhood. 

"  And  if  compelled  by  the  perverseness  of  his  subjects,  he 
with  whom  this  divine  prerogative  had  been  deposited  was 
obliged  to  change  the  voice  of  paternal  tenderness  for  that 
of  admonition  and  rebuke,  he  addressed  the  wanderers  like 
little  children  whom  he  sought  to  reclaim  rather  than  as 
rebels  whom  it  was  his  duty  to  chastise." 

From  1250  to  the  reformation,  Europe  was  as  complete 


320  The  History  of  Christianity 

a  theocracy  as  was  ever  the  Jewish  nation  at  its  best  estate. 
Exceptions  to  this  will  of  course  be  found  as  nations,  like 
individuals,  are  subject  to  the  law  of  growth  and  change. 
"  Inconsistency  was  the  only  characteristic  in  which  the 
Middle  Ages  were  uniformly  consistent."  But  we  cannot  on 
that  account  any  more  deny  that  Europe,  from  the  thirteenth 
to  the  sixteenth  century,  was  theocratic,  than  we  can  deny 
that,  on  account  of  immorality  in  England  and  America 
today,  these  countries  are  in  the  broad  sense  Christian. 


Date  Due 

r  1  i  '^' 

7 

l^r  n 

4B 

'       b'4i 

^ 

^■f   Tv 

^    -^^3 

^ 

' 

i 

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